Bazball is now official! Term used to describe England’s aggressive style of play under coach Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes is listed in new edition of Collins English Dictionary

• Bazball set to be included in the next edition of the Collins English Dictionary
• Term describes England’s style of play under Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes
• Coach McCullum is not a fan of the phrase and described it as ‘silly’ last summer

Bazball has officially entered the dictionary after being named as one of Collins’ 10 words of the year.

Listed as a noun, it has been given the dictionary definition of ‘a style of Test cricket in which the batting side attempts to gain the initiative by playing in a highly aggressive manner’.

Its origin is noted as ‘C21: after Brendon McCullum, known as Baz (born 1981), New Zealand cricketer and coach’.

The word has now been added to collinsdictionary.com and is set to be included in the next edition of the Collins English Dictionary, the largest single-volume English dictionary in print.

Publishers HarperCollins stated that ‘the excitement of this summer’s Ashes series had many people talking about Bazball’.

Bazball was coined as a term to describe England’s style of play under new coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes

Explaining the process of adding new words to their dictionary, they said: ‘The lexicographers at Collins Dictionary monitor the 20-billion-word Collins Corpus which draws from a range of media sources, including social media, to create the annual list of new and notable words that reflect our ever-evolving language and the preoccupations of those who use it.’

Bazball, which also has its own Wikipedia page and is the name of a new book co-written by Mail Sport’s Lawrence Booth, was first coined as a term last year to describe England’s style of play under new coach McCullum and captain Ben Stokes.

However, McCullum said last summer: ‘I don’t have any idea what “Bazball” is. I don’t really like that silly term that people are throwing out there.’

Collins’ other words of 2023 are AI, canon event, debanking, deinfluencing, greedflation, nepo baby, semaglutide, ultraprocessed and Ulez.

Source: Read Full Article