We Will Drop At Least Four players: Ravichandran Ashwin Explains Why Bazball Approach Will Not Work In India
New Delhi: Indian team off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has strongly opined that “Bazball” will not work in Indian cricket because the country has a completely different culture in comparison to England. He also said that at least four players will end up getting dropped if India attempts to adopt the Bazball style of cricket.
After Brendon McCullum became England’s test cricket team head coach and Ben Stokes was named test Captain their brand of cricket changed completely. The Ben Stokes-led side adopted an ultra-aggressive batting approach dubbed Bazball. Since then, it has been one of the big talking points in cricket over the last few months.
Team India gave hints of an aggressive batting approach during the Test series in West Indies. However, speaking on his YouTube channel, Ashwin explained why he feels the brand of cricket won’t work for India. The 36-year-old off-spinner went on to add that England’s cricketers can play Babzall freely because they have the full support of the team management, the selectors as well as the public.
“Let us assume India is playing Bazball during their transition phase. Let us assume a player throws his bat at everything like Harry Brook, gets out and we lose two Test matches. What will we do? Will we back Bazball and the players? We will drop at least four players from our playing XI. That’s how our culture has always been. So, we can’t copy others’ style of play just because it worked for them,” Ashwin stated.
“It works for them because their management is fully in with this style of play. The selectors back the players to play this way. In fact, even their crowd and the Test match-watching public are backing the team in this process. We can’t do that,” the seasoned spinner added.
England lost the first two Tests of Ashes 2023 but did not deviate from their aggressive batting approach and ended up winning two of the last three Tests. Sharing his thoughts on a closely contest Ashes series, England Test coach Brendon McCullum said that “Sometimes, we’ll get the balance wrong with the style we play, but you’ve got teams good enough to stand up to you and make you pay when the time comes and Australia did that in the first couple of Test matches. But we refined it slightly as the series wore on.”