It may not be much of an overstatement if one claims England’s confidence is as high as the Kailasagiri mountain overlooking the ACA-VDCA Stadium here.

Ahead of the second Test beginning on Friday, England’s batting mainstay Joe Root practised left-handed for some time during Wednesday’s training session and played the reverse sweep at ease.

Even senior India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin had bowled left-arm spin during one of India’s training sessions in Indore back in November 2019. But that was the day after India had thrashed Bangladesh by an innings in barely nine sessions, not ahead of an important clash.

Such is the impact of Bazball, which this England side swears by and rightly so, especially after their unbelievable turnaround in Hyderabad to go one up in the five-match series. “A lot of us play a bit better under this regime,” opener Zak Crawley was forthright.

The trial by spin will continue for England though with the wicket here likely to spin from late in the second day. There hasn’t been any watering on the surface for the last three days, it was learnt.

But pitch and overall conditions don’t seem to be much of a concern for the Bazballers. Irrespective of the conditions, sweeping and reverse sweeping will continue for sure as far as England are concerned.

“Sweeping and reverse sweeping, when it’s spinning, is a good option. It takes the spin out of plan. I think the reverse sweep is more common for us, because there are fewer fielders in there,” Crawley stated.

“They (India) always seem to have two men out on the leg side. If they had two men out on the other side, we would probably play the sweep. That said, the reverse sweep comes probably just as naturally to us as the normal sweep.

“There are four games left, so we’ve got to stick to what we do well and hopefully, the results follow,” Crawley explained.

Like India, England are also likely to tweak their playing XI for the second Test. Mark Wood, not much effective as the lone pacer in the opening Test, was absent from Wednesday’s training and may give way to James Anderson, who bowled a pretty long spell at nets and is 10 short of the 700-wicket landmark.

The visitors’ lead spinner Jack Leach’s condition — left knee injury suffered while fielding on Day I of the first Test — doesn’t seem to have improved much. He was seen limping, taking no part in the training session.

In the left-arm spinner’s absence, young off-spinner Shoaib Bashir, who joined the England squad a few days ago after getting his visa issue sorted, certainly comes into the fray. Bashir had a pretty decent spell of bowling at nets and troubled captain Ben Stokes on quite a few occasions.

“Shoaib knows what he’s trying to do with his bowling and he backs himself,” Crawley emphasised.