As the final chapter of the Bazball era unfolded, marking England’s surrender of The Ashes for another two years, the resonant echoes of choristers in their vibrant red robes filled St Peter’s Cathedral. They chatted amongst themselves in the chancel, awaiting the start of their Eucharist rehearsal.

Back in 2001, this very cathedral hosted the memorial service for the cricket legend Sir Donald Bradman. In earlier days, Test cricketers would often visit this serene site, lending its name to one of the bowling ends at Adelaide Oval just a short stroll down King William Road, to find a moment of peace and reflection.

However, on this Sunday before Christmas, no England cricketers were seen seeking solace or divine intervention to stave off what seemed like inevitable defeat. The prospect of being overwhelmed in a third consecutive Test match and losing The Ashes in just 11 days loomed large over a series that had been billed as an epic confrontation.

But this day marked the dawn of the end. The vision of triumph would not materialize here. Sunday served as the final farewell to Bazball. Tasked with a world-record run chase by Australia, England’s remaining batsmen displayed admirable resilience until, at 2:12 PM, Josh Tongue edged a skillful delivery from Scott Boland to Marnus Labuschagne, sealing their fate.

England succumbed to an 82-run defeat in the third Test. Coupled with earlier losses in Perth and Brisbane, this left them trailing 3-0 in the series. Australia, having outperformed their rivals in every facet of the game and imparted a lesson in the tenacity and unforgiving nature of Test cricket, secured an unbeatable lead.

RIP Bazball: A philosophy that told us nothing is impossible has been ripped apart by Australia

Questions will be asked of Brendon McCullum (left) and Ben Stokes’ approach to Bazball

Australia celebrate in wild scenes after Josh Tongue’s downfall sealed a dramatic 82-run win

In that moment when Tongue stood at the wicket, looking at Australia celebrating, not quite knowing what to do, it felt like more than the end of just a game of cricket. It felt like the end of an idea. It felt like that part of a revolution where an ideal bows to realpolitik and the thrill of the new is lost forever.

In the years since McCullum took over in May 2022 and formed such a dynamic allegiance with Stokes, Bazball told us that nothing was impossible, that no run chase was too big, that no situation was irretrievable, that no ambition was too haughty.

It was a sky-is-the-limit philosophy. It was intoxicating and it was full of hope and of the joy and the excitement and the freedom of attacking, aggressive, risk-taking, entertaining cricket.

But as Tongue trudged down the wicket to shake hands with Brydon Carse, unbeaten on 39, and the Aussies cavorted on the pitch, the hard reality was England had been overwhelmed in an Ashes series that so many had hoped would represent the apotheosis of Bazball’s achievements, and all that hope and ambition lay in ruins.

Bazball now resembles something hollowed out. In three sobering, humbling Test defeats, a philosophy that once carried all along with it but has become divisive and polarising, has had its soul ripped out and its entrails pored over by those who are now happy to say they always feared it would end like this.

In the days and weeks ahead, some will call for McCullum to be fired. Some will demand the same fate for Rob Key, England’s managing director. Few, hopefully, will be foolish enough to suggest that Stokes departs. The England captain still represents the best brain and the best leader English cricket possesses.

But Bazball is over. Even Stokes admits that. An hour or so after the game had finished, I asked him if England’s identity, forged under McCullum, was gone, abandoned on the battlefields of the Gabba and the Adelaide Oval in the grim fight for survival in Australia.

Even by the start of the Third Test, it was clear that Bazball had lost its nerve and that Stokes wanted it to evolve. That was why he uttered the phrase that will come to define this tour, that ‘Australia is no place for weak men’.

In the days and weeks ahead, some will call for McCullum to be fired and Rob Key (right) too

Bazball had become something that allowed players to abdicate responsibility and Stokes seemed to see that. He wanted it to evolve. He wanted players to start showing what he called a bit of ‘dog’. Bazball, in its purest form, was already on the way out when England arrived in Adelaide.

‘The main thing we have always wanted to achieve with this group of players is taking the added pressure off that is put there by external stuff that goes on away from playing the game itself,’ Stokes said on Sunday afternoon.

‘Sometimes, the best thing that can happen is you make a mistake and learn from it. I think some of the mistakes we have seen in this series before this game, you sit back and watch the guys operate in this game you can see it is starting to click.

‘We have to make sure we are not restricting people’s mindset about how they think they can best be successful for this team. Zak Crawley’s second innings knock was not something you would associate with him but he played the situation that was in front of him.

‘It is an evolution for some guys in this team and it is about marrying the skills and ability they have with the mentality it takes to be successful as an international sportsman. Put those together and we know we have a very exciting Test team who can be more successful than we have been over the last four years.’

Stokes pointed to Zak Crawley’s second-innings knock as an example of someone evolving

So England fly to Melbourne for the Boxing Day Test to regroup, to lick their wounds, to figure out what comes next. A more pragmatic, gritty approach that still finds room for flair and expression seems not only necessary but desirable, too. If we need a name for it, how about calling it after its author. ‘Benball’, perhaps?

Many will celebrate the demise of Bazball. Some saw it as a blueprint for irresponsibility, a puerile, flippant, disrespectful, unserious attitude to a serious game.

Many had come to hate it because Bazball wanted to change a game that Bazball’s detractors did not want to change. But there is cold comfort, surely, in England losing in a good old-fashioned, supine way in Adelaide. Despite a final flourish, it was still a comprehensive defeat.

I am a fan of Bazball. I have loved the boldness and the thrill and the unpredictability it has brought to Test cricket. But McCullum has failed his own brand on this tour. Too much about the preparation and the execution felt like freestyling. And if someone has to carry the can for this Ashes debacle, it is best that it should be him. 

Yes, Bazball has been defrocked in this brutal Ashes series. Yes, its time is over. But a return to the joylessness and the defeatism that preceded its era is not something any of us should forget or wish to summon once again.