Down 1-2, with two matches to go, and English cricket at the moment is seemingly caught in the quagmire of finding the right approach. Joe Root is at the centre of the storm, vertically splitting opinions following his reverse ramp against Jasprit Bumrah in the first innings of the Rajkot Test. The older hands are still condemning it, while the current team coached by Brendon McCullum and skippered by Ben Stokes is standing by the former captain.
In the third Test, chasing India’s first innings total of 445, England were 219-2 at one stage, when Root tried to reverse-ramp Bumrah and holed out to second slip. A spectacular collapse followed and the tourists eventually lost the Test by 434 runs. Root’s dismissal gave the hosts an inch and Rohit Sharma & Co took a mile. The carry-over is continuing even as the two teams are getting ready for the fourth Test starting in Ranchi on Friday.
Geoffrey Boycott, the legendary former England opener, has called the current team “cocky”. “England’s players can talk all they want about being entertainers but winning is better. So much guff comes out of their dressing room about attacking bowlers, imposing themselves on whatever the situation is and that they will chase any target,” he wrote in his column in The Telegraph, London.
In his indomitable style, Sir Geoffrey went on: “Ben Duckett was full of himself after his wonderful innings of 153 saying ‘the more runs we have to chase the better’. After their second innings collapse and massive defeat his comments should embarrass him. If you are going to boast, be outrageously cocky, even arrogant, then you have to back it up with deeds, not words.”
There’s a school of thought which feels Root, England’s best batter, is struggling to match Bazball’s tempo and compromising his natural game in the process. But there are two sides to every narrative. In 2023, Root appeared to be seamlessly fitting into the Bazball philosophy, scoring runs and executing his innovative shots to perfection. Last year, he scored 864 runs in 11 Tests, including two hundreds. His reverse-ramps off Pat Cummins during the Ashes were lauded.
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The counter argument is that, with India one bowler short in the first innings in Rajkot – Ravichandran Ashwin had to return home due to a family medical emergency – Root should have seen off Bumrah, his nemesis, before trying to up the ante. With Ben Duckett going great guns at the other end, he was in no hurry to step on the accelerator. Root actually failed to play as per the situation, handing over the initiative to India on a platter.
It would be preposterous to question the game awareness of a bona fide great who has scored 11,493 runs in 138 Tests. Root’s approach is perhaps symptomatic of a lopsided thought process of a side that is keeping flexibility at arm’s length. Boycott has even gone the distance of calling Baz-cricket a “one-trick pony”. “If an individual or a team can only play or perform one way then they are a one-trick pony and not a great player or great team. At the moment, England are in danger of hoisting themselves on their own petard with batters being told or believing they must attack, attack, attack all the time,” he wrote.
Will England adopt a more pragmatic approach after getting a hiding in Rajkot? Will Root return to his natural game, something that has made him one of the all-time greats? Unlikely, as McCullum and Stokes are not going to shun the philosophy after one heavy defeat. Mind, England have won 14 out of 21 Tests during the Bazball era and the series against India is very much alive.
The pitch at the JSCA International Stadium in Ranchi could be closer to what was on offer at the first Test in Hyderabad than the flatbed in Rajkot. A couple of days before the start of the match, Ollie Pope has called the surface ‘platey’. A sharp turner reduces the gap between the Indian spinners and their inexperienced English counterparts. But for England to bounce back, Root will have to regain his batting mojo. So far, he has scored only 77 runs at 12.83 in the series. Irrespective of the approach, it’s now or never for the 33-year-old.
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