Former England captains aimed both barrels at the team’s high-wire ‘Bazball’ approach in the wake of their thrashing by India in the third Test on Sunday and called for Ben Stokes’s side to temper their aggressive strategy to avoid further humiliation.

“This England team are hellbent on doing things their way, and ‘saving Test cricket’. They are giving Test cricket a shot in the arm because they are so exciting,” Michael Vaughan wrote in Britain’s Daily Telegraph.

“But ultimately they have to be better than that now. They didn’t win in New Zealand, they didn’t win the Ashes, and if they carry on like this, they are going to lose in India. As a team, you are judged on series victories.”

Vaughan added: “They (England) need to look at the way (Yashasvi) Jaiswal and Shubman Gill played... They soaked up the pressure for 30 or 40 balls, and then they started to get boundaries.

“That is what Test batting is about. India have scored 875 runs in 228.5 overs. No one can tell me it’s been boring watching India bat here.”

Michael Atherton said opener Ben Duckett’s “the more the better” comments after the third day regarding a realistic target England could chase down were fanciful.

“One can admire the positivity and playfulness of Ben Duckett and this England team — such were his comments on the third evening — while also questioning their occasional self-delusion,” Atherton wrote in The Times.

“Careful husbandry of resources is not the Bazball way. They have been profligate in the extreme in this match, wasting a golden opportunity to build on Duckett’s brilliant second-day hundred and to achieve parity or more on first innings.”

Writing in his column for the Daily Mail, Nasser Hussain said England must learn from their mistakes.

“If England don’t consider tweaks, Bazball just becomes a cult that can’t be questioned,” he added.

“I am not asking them to alter their mantra, just to review the last couple of matches and ask themselves: ‘how can we improve?’”

In a post on X, English umpire Richard Kettleborough said: “R.I.P Bazball. England has been humiliated.”