In a difficult but ultimately necessary family conversation, parents across England have begun sitting their children down to explain that, despite what they may have heard on television and social media, Bazball is actually just a figment of the imagination.

“It’s just a word some adults made up during a stressful summer,” Surrey dad Terry Bridgeton said, gently removing from the fridge a hand-drawn picture of Ben Stokes riding a flaming cricket bat. “It’s like the Tooth Fairy, or trickle-down economics. It sounds like magic, but it’s not a real thing”.

Parents say the decision came after weeks of mounting confusion, with children questioning why they had never actually seen Bazball in real life and whether Bazball would be covered in GCSE maths.

“Our son asked if Bazball was a type of religion and whether he needed to believe in it to get into heaven. That’s when we realised we’d let it go too far,” mother-of-two Jennifer Collins said.

Other parents said there were some difficult follow-up questions. “My son just looked at me and said, ‘So you’re telling me England can’t score 450 in a day whenever they want?’ I nodded, and he cried for a bit. I cried too,” Nottingham parent Michael Patterson said.

Experts say the myth of Bazball spread rapidly through playgrounds after children overheard adults loudly declaring England had changed the game forever.

“Kids are especially vulnerable to too-good-to-be-true narratives involving endless winning, taking no responsibility for anything, and hitting sixes over midwicket on the first ball of a test match in Perth,” child psychologist Dr. Felicity Morris explained. “They don’t yet have the emotional tools to process the idea that it might all be bullshit.”

The England and Wales Cricket Board has declined to comment, though sources confirmed it is preparing educational materials to help families navigate the transition, including a leaflet titled “Bazball: A Fun Phase We All Went Through”.