Sunil Gavaskar has backed ‘Viratball’ to counter England’s much talked about ‘Bazball’ approach in the five-Test series beginning in Hyderabad on Thursday.
England’s batting line-up has embraced an ultra-aggressive style, often associated with their head coach Brendon McCullum’s approach towards the game in his playing days.
“The way he’s (Virat Kohli) been batting, his movement looks good. With the form that he’s in, we have Viratball to counter Bazball,” Gavaskar told Star Sports.
Kohli, who is 152 runs short of joining the 9000-run club in Test cricket, will be India’s batting mainstay. He has 29 fifties and 30 centuries in 113 matches.
“Yeah, conversion means having more hundreds than fifties. With Kohli, he has a similar amount of hundreds and fifties, that means he has a good conversion rate,” Gavaskar said.
England drew their previous series against India at home. However, hosts India, unbeaten in a Test series at home since their 1-2 loss to England in the 2012-2013 season, remain a formidable opponent.
The upcoming Test series promises an intriguing clash between India’s spin prowess, led by experienced campaigners like Ravichandran Ashwin, and England’s aggressive batting strategy. India also have the likes of Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel in their spin armoury.
“England have adopted a new approach in Test cricket in the last 1-2 years. It’s an aggressive approach where batters look to attack. They just want to play attacking cricket no matter the situation. It’ll be interesting to see if this approach works against the spinners of India,” Gavaskar added.
Michael Atherton believes that the Indian spinners will call the shots. The former England captain reckons India’s superior spin attack will win them the five-Test series.
“I think India will win. Their spinners are better than England’s and that will be the defining thing in the end,” Atherton told Skysports.
Jack Leach is the only experienced spinner in the England squad with the others being the inexperienced Tom Hartley, Shoaib Bashir and Rehan Ahmed.
With inputs from PTI
