On the podcast this week, the Revd Robert Stanier, a parish priest and keen cricketer, talks about how English test cricket has been revolutionised by “Bazball”: an attacking, risk-taking style of play that doesn’t worry too much about losing. Are there lessons here for the Church of England?

He writes in this week’s Comment section, “For the Church, one lesson of the Bazball revolution is that, as we think about fresh expressions, perhaps we should be thinking less about new formats, but more about fresh mind-sets. Counter-intuitive as it is, what we already have may contain possibilities we haven’t even begun to uncover.”

Read the article here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/21-july/comment/opinion/opinion-england-s-cricketers-test-the-art-of-the-possible

The Revd Robert Stanier is Vicar of St Andrew and St Mark, Surbiton, in the diocese of Southwark, and a former winner of the 2018 Wisden Writing Competition (Comment, 18 May 2018).

He played in a recent clergy match featuring a cluster of cricketers from southern dioceses. Read his match report here: https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2023/21-july/news/uk/clergy-cricketers-play-on-undaunted-by-fewer-players-and-summer-rain

Photo: Alamy

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