KANPUR: Earlier in the year, India captain Rohit Sharma took offence when Ben Duckett suggested England’s ‘Bazball‘ approach deserved credit for Yashasvi Jaiswal‘s aggressive batting during the Test series in India.
English cricket conceived the idea of ‘Bazball’ in 2022 and branded it as a vehicle to save Test cricket. Given the way India batted here on Monday, they can claim to have developed an aggressive batting approach of their own.
India’s mindset, in many ways, is more flexible than the at-times blinkers-on ‘Bazball’ approach.
A major reason behind India moving on from Cheteshwar Pujara was to boost scoring rates. Hence the need to accommodate Shubman Gill at No. 3. “Saving Test cricket is about playing a brand of cricket that will come out on top,” India’s bowling coach Morne Morkel said at the end of the third day’s play on Monday.
“The crowd today had a T20 feel about it. I think teams are going to sum up the conditions. If the conditions allow you to score quickly and if you are in a position to push the play forward, it’s going to happen.”
If one compares the batting performances of India and England over the last two years, one will see more English collapses. India have had more successful counter-attacks with the bat. On Monday too, India showed they could unleash the ‘all-out attack’ mode at will and execute it better than most other teams.
Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill, for example, both got their eye in on a tricky surface before getting into demolition mode.
“That’s the beauty of our batting lineup. We have got guys who can play different styles. They can take the game on. If needed, they can bat time. That’s the special thing that the guys play the moment well. The one thing you must do as a batter is to put the bowlers under pressure,” Morkel said. India’s batting line-up has largely grown up on a heavy T20 diet.
Save Jaiswal, everyone down to No. 8 has captained an IPL team at some point of their careers. Punchy drives, crispy lofted shots down the ground, slashing cuts, thunderous sweeps and smart reverse sweeps – the Indian batters served a buffet in shot-making on Monday.
Bangladesh’s Mehidy Hasan Miraz pointed out that India’s ‘all-format batting’ is what makes it difficult to plan against them. “They are not just one-format batters. They do well in all three formats. They are so good at playing the situation, it’s a lesson for other teams,” Miraz said.
“You get varied situations in Test cricket. Today was like a T20 game. They came to the ground to win.”
“Cricket is a game of scoring runs. In the first innings, we tried to score runs quickly to take us to a safe position in the Test. In doing so, we lost a couple of wickets,” Miraz said.
At the moment, India seem to be acing the power game in Test cricket.