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The Life Cycle of a Cult can be characterized by distinct phases.

1. The Core Concept

A dominant personality or figureheads introduce a revolutionary approach offering a solution for struggling players.

And so it goes. They’re getting ready to challenge the establishment overseas. Pressure is mounting. Smoke is rising from within. A lone figure, vulnerable, shivering, the phrase ATTACKING MINDSET written on his body as a symbol, has stumbled through the lines and is being led away under a blanket to a different team elsewhere.

Do you ever miss the early days, when everything was fresh? The era of early Bazball, of pure instinct.

2. Love-Bombing

Cult leaders offer a new start, optimism ahead, camaraderie, success together with shared faith in the philosophy.

How did it feel initially? Just men on a balcony enjoying success. Ink. Muscles. Determination. Elite male wellness energy. Admittedly, The squad will claim it’s not a real term, amusingly since it’s not recognized, what was that spectacle?

But we know the concept. It’s the player playing a shot so outrageous it has to be pixelated. It’s the excitement of the leader in ultimate mode, a look that says: thoughtful warrior, strong features, untamed style, so authentically Modern Savage you almost imagine to notice and see him playing on the ground stripped to the waist holding a fish.

It’s the batsman often seen speaking publicly, out there looking like a joyful figure smartly dressed, expressing thoughts like we’re challenging norms. Indeed, the atmosphere, initially, was uplifting.

3. Expansion Period

Building period. Cohesion maintained through repetition of key phrases. These principles may seem irrational as a loyalty check.

Does anyone else feel? The backlash, the anger, the disappointment after the first Ashes Test defeat appears excessive, overdone. The batting collapsed during the match, as they often do in Australia. They were savaged defensively for a couple of hours as plans unraveled, manipulated by the batsman imitating their style effectively, adjusting to the pitch, an athlete shining with aura.

Currently, we see the attacks, the rage, the perception of the team as a kind of abomination. The feeling seems to be that England don’t just need to lose, they need to lose righteously, to be purged, destroyed, defeated via traditional methods of the pace attack, the low-fi orthodoxies of Scott Boland, out there celebrating achievements humbly as if receiving a pleasant gift. How will they respond?

4. Hate Bonding

Challenges surface due to setbacks. Yet, mistakes are denied. It starts to feed on hostility externally.

The fact remains, a few days before the next match, we are at a delicious point of tension in the story of this movement. They might succeed overseas through aggressive play. Alternatively, they could lose just as quickly. And if they do lose it seems we may see the decline.

Prior to that, several aspects to consider regarding this. Previously, at the start, of passion and hope, I wrote an article suggesting Bazball was a cult. There was outrage, which proved the point as it’s known the best way of proving lack of cult status is should followers respond with anger objecting to the questioning of the beliefs.

Recent events in the last few days are equally notable. It seems that hating Bazball has turned into a movement. Social media is furious, angry English pundits, images of frustrated travelling fans cheated out of three days of cricket, reminiscent of investors demanding recourse.

Conversely, we have the wider backdrop of the host’s complex ingrained annoyance with the aggressive tourists, claiming, the methods you value and have fostered and nurtured to distinguish yourselves culturally from us, it’s just a joke in the end old boy.

This is the core issue. All movements are similar. The style was a trend because cricket is a cult. In fact, the sport in England is closed, a group, a garden party, an insular community with two hundred years of opaque and ritualistic cult history supporting it. Historically, this was a place where power and access are hoarded. It’s the imperial sport of England, the original sports washers. And guess what, Britain is itself a cult, a series of esoteric hierarchies, a royal family remains.

England’s cricketers have been enclosed within this world from a young age. In trying to escape from it, to build a better atmosphere, they are simply replicating their own experience, creating another a bubble, an exclusive group, but now with a modern squad and a mentor who wants you to be yourself if you fit the mold.

Stay present. Run towards the danger. Despite efforts, things stay similar.

Considering this, now is the time to offer compassion for Bazball, to recognize its positives, that are numerous. How to define it? Encouraging expression. Questioning traditions. Batting aggressively|Attacking with