India, Jan. 9 -- "We aren't here to win or lose, we are here to entertain." It was with this audacious proclamation that England captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum kicked off one of the more entertaining experiments in Test cricket. The 4-1 Ashes victory by Australia might bring the curtain down on a tactic that was popularly known as Bazball, but there is no denying that it was fun while it lasted. It got people back in the stands, stirred up debate, and challenged the norms. In that sense, regardless of the results, it was a success. A new tactic (and it was new in that it was the way the entire team, not one or two individuals, played) is often a step into the unknown - you don't quite know whether it will actually work out. However, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Could anyone have predicted that Total Football, a fluid tactic where any outfield player can take over another's role that was famously employed by Ajax and the Dutch football teams in the 1970s, would capture the imagination of the public in the way it did? In basketball, the Golden State Warriors made a miss-more-than-hit shot, the three-pointer, the centrepiece of their domination of the US's National Basketball Association (NBA). In cricket itself, we saw the West Indies teams of the late '70s revolutionise the game by playing four fast bowlers when everyone else thought a spinner or two was necessary, and closer still, we saw the great Australian team of the late '90s and early 2000s score at a rate that wasn't quite Bazball but pretty stunning when viewed in isolation. Which is why one must say thank you, Bazball. It was far from perfect, as the tours of India and Australia showed, but where would sport be without these risk-takers? Imagine everyone doing the same thing year after year! It would be boring and monotonous, without a hint of the unpredictability or awe that makes sport so watched and loved. Even in Bazball's failure lies lessons that will perhaps inspire another generation to do things in their own way, and that may be a far greater reward than mere wins....