Rajkot Test: India seem to have the blueprint to crack England’s Bazball code – it’s 22-yard long | Cricket News

The battle between England’s Bazball and India’s Jamball, as R Ashwin titled a video on his YouTube channel, reached a pivotal point at the end of the third Test. With India leading 2-1 after the record-breaking 434-run win, coach Rahul Dravid and captain Rohit Sharma seemed to have arrived with a blueprint to crack the Bazball code and its 22 yards in length. As Rajkot proved, a paata, a track that does its thing on the final two days, is the perfect antidote for England’s aggressive Bazball style of play.
Those in the know say that the Indian team have done away with the turners not due to some ethical concerns, but a deeply-thought-out punt on how it will play out against this England team. Though Rohit Sharma would deny any involvement with the pitches at the end of the third Test: “We come two days to the venue before a game, and we play what the curator prepares.” He said it with such a wondrous straight face that it’s clear why his acting talent in advertisements have considerably improved in recent times.
Ashwin, however, had explained the rationale. “It is supposed to be that way, to cash in if there is a fourth-innings possibility and the wicket deteriorates. The way they are playing is high-risk cricket and you would expect the rub of the green to go your way, like how it did in Vizag.” And in Rajkot.
The kind of pitches India have served up nullifies England’s 140 plus kph pacer Mark Wood, it reduces the effectiveness of inexperienced England spinners Tom Hartley and the teenager Rehan Ahmed, and leaves James Anderson with too much to do. The ball spun a lot earlier in the first Test in Hyderabad, started later in the second Test in Vizag, and very late in the third Test in Rajkot. It’s not Yashasvi Jaiswal or Sarfaraz Khan’s second-innings knocks that tell the story but the utter comfort with which the nightwatchman Kuldeep Yadav batted on the fourth morning.

Teasing Bazball ego
It also teases the ego inherent in the Bazball cult that England’s batsmen belong to. “We played four and a half sessions; [if] they want to get it done in two, so be it,” Ashwin would say. The tracks allow England’s batsmen to be effective with their flamboyant approach – opener Ben Duckett’s monstrous slog-sweeps to the cow corner is far tougher to visualise coming off without a threat of a top-edge on a turner where the ball jumps and breaks. It has emboldened England’s batsmen so much that they have crossed the Lakshman Rekha of sensible-aggression and self-destruction.
It’s remarkable that England have managed to do so well despite their inexperienced spin attack and even Mark Wood nullified on these tracks. Without their frontline spinner Jack Leach and without Stokes’s bowling abilities, they had no business, really, to be in a position to attempt a 2-1 series lead, if not for a manic batting approach on day 3 in Rajkot.
Root, Stokes the culprits
Interestingly, it’s the senior batsmen in England who are messing up the Bazball execution. Joe Root and Ben Stokes, and occasionally Ollie Pope. Not the Ducketts and Crawleys. Both Duckett and Crawley have spoken about how they play the shots that they have trained a lot for and after weighing the risk percentage. And so, it’s the reverse sweeps and slog-sweeps they play.Not a reverse lap-scoop, like Root did, on a pitch where the ball had begun to keep a touch low and didn’t have much pace; two elements crucial for that shot. Stokes’s slog sweep was fine in theory but with Jadeja cleverly altering the line to further outside off and with a wide long-on in place, he would need far more malleable wrs and a lot of luck to drag it even wider of that fielder.
With Jonny Bairstow’s poor form continuing, will England turn to some other batsman like Dan Lawrence, who has also been practicing his off spin with an odd action a lot in the nets? It’s also time to rest Wood and bring in Ollie Robinson, who showed a great understanding and skill on how to bowl on flat tracks in the series in Pakan that England won.
The huge run margin win in Rajkot doesn’t quite tell the story not just of the series but even of the game itself. If Root had shown greater match awareness as he should have as a former captain, and Stokes had shown better shot selection, England could have incredibly found themselves in a far better position. It was the same pair that messed up the Vizag chase as well. Root rushing down the pitch for the oldest slog in this business as if ordered someone with a gun on his head and Stokes strolling in the garden to get himself run out. If these two can sort out their batting headspace, and either Lawrence clicks or Bairstow finds his way out of the mess, England can still push India.
Finally, the big question: How will the Ranchi pitch play? Will it be a further fine-tuning of the Rajkot version or will India try to spring a surprise and throw a rank-turner in case they want to rest Jasprit Bumrah?