The England cricket team, with a characteristic ‘Bazball approach’ scored the fastest-ever team fifty in Test cricket when opener Ben Duckett and one-down Ollie Pope took the West Indies bowlers to cleaners in the first few overs.

England got to their 50 in just 4.2 overs and rewrote their own record of the fastest team 50. England had scored 50 in 4.3 overs against South Africa at The Oval in 1994.

England, without James Anderson, were put into bat and West Indies’ decision to bowl first looked spot on when Zak Crawley edged Alzarri Joseph to third slip in the third ball of the day.

However, from then on it was just one way traffic as Duckett (33 off 14 balls) and Pope (16 off 9 balls) smashed 10 boundaries between them to send the West Indies on a leather hunt.

England holds the record for the top-three fastest team 50s with today’s innings on top. The 50 against South Africa ranks second while the third fastest 50 came against Sri Lanka in 5 overs at the Old Trafford in Manchester in 2002.

Sri Lanka stands fourth in the list of fastest team 50s having got to the 50-run mark in 5.2 overs against Pakistan in Karachi in 2004.

India comes next with two 50-run episodes in 5.3 overs – the first against England at Chennai in 2008 and the second against West Indies at Port of Spain in 2023.

England’s team has adopted the ‘Bazball’ approach, which is an aggressive approach towards scoring quick runs. The style was developed by Brendon McCullum, who was England’s coach and was nicknamed ‘Baz’.

England has had mixed results with the ‘Bazball’ approach and have often been criticised by many experts for taking that approach.

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