Marnus Labuschagne's savage response to 'garbage' England revelation at World Cup

‘Bazball’ has been added to the Collins Dictionary and upon learning of it, Australian cricketer Marnus Labuschagne labelled the decision "garbage". On Wednesday, it was confirmed that ‘Bazball’, a phrase coined by ESPNcricinfo reporter Andrew Miller last year for the brand of cricket Brendan McCullum's England play, would be added to the next print version of the Collins English Dictionary.

The noun is described as: “A style of Test cricket in which the batting side plays in a highly aggressive manner”. While it has been officially added, ‘Bazball’ did not win the 2023 Word of the Year despite making the short-list, with AI taking out that honour.

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Speaking to reporters in Ahmedabad on Thursday ahead of Australia's World Cup clash with England, Labuschagne was asked for his thoughts on the inclusion of the word. “Oh man that is garbage, seriously,” Labuschagne responded. “I don’t know what that is, honestly. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

When asked about 'Bazball' last year England's coach didn't even know what it was. “I don‘t have any idea what ‘Bazball’ is,” McCullum said. “I don’t really like that silly term that people are throwing out there.”

England currently sit bottom of the World Cup standings after losing five of their six group stage matches and have no chance of qualifying for the semi-finals so talk about the incredible 'Bazball' has waned. Ahead of Australia's match against England Labuschane warned that England is a dangerous team to face when they're down.

“I just really want to beat England,” Labuschagne said. "For a high-quality line-up being tenth in the World Cup, yep absolutely, it’s a shock. England have just been horribly out of form.

“They’re dangerous. If there’s ever been a team that’s dangerous when they’re down and out, it’s England. Hopefully, we can just keep playing well … we need to be at our best.”

Joe Root's swipe at Australia side before World Cup clash

England's Joe Root may be on an out-of-sorts English side but he has confidently declared he would rather have his players over their Australian counterparts. "Man for man, I'd have this team every day over the Australians," he said.

"We might not have played as well as we can do but we know when we play our best stuff the best teams struggle to compete with us. I look at this team and it's more than capable of achieving way more than it has done throughout this tournament. With the quality of players we have, we should be sat right at the top of this table. We all know that and we're all very frustrated that isn't the case.

"We've just got to look at Saturday as our World Cup final and play in the manner that's expected of us and we expect of ourselves. We have massively underachieved to date and have three opportunities to show the world what we are capable of doing and what I know we are capable of doing."

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