Former England skipper Michael Vaughan has issued a warning to England ahead of the five Test series in India, saying their Bazball approach may get ‘absolutely destroyed’ against the lethal spin attack of the hosts.
England will play five Tests in India as part of the ICC World Test Championships cycle starting on January 25 in Hyderabad.
England’s aggressive ‘Bazball’ approach has created a lot of buzz in the cricketing world in the last 18 months with the team winning 13 of their last 18 red-ball games.
But Vaughan reminded England of their struggle against Australian spinner Nathan Lyon during the Ashes and said the strategy may not work in India.
‘Ultimately, the hardest place to play in the world is India and if you actually go back to the Ashes when Nathan Lyon was fit and bowling nicely, Australia were 2-0 up in the series,’ Vaughan told foxsports.com.au.
‘That was just one innings and a few overs in the first innings at Lords… Nathan came out with a lovely line the other week where he said he’s 2-nil up against Bazball.
‘Now that’s just one spinner, if you look at that five-for he got at Edgbaston and the field was spread and England got out to him by playing ridiculous shots at times.”
‘If you add in Ashwin, Jadeja and Axar Patel on spinning wickets in India, they may get blown away, they may get absolutely destroyed.
‘They will go out and play exactly the same way, we’ve already spoken about the impact they are going to try and achieve in India with the way they play.
‘It will be great watching, but you will have to fancy three quality spinners might do a job on England when one quality spinner in Nathan Lyon did the job in English conditions. It’s going to be very tough for them to win in India'”
England on Monday named four specialist spinners — Jack Leach, teenage leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed and the uncapped duo of Tom Hartley and Shoaib Bashir, in the 16-member squad for the Test series in India.
After the first Test in Hyderabad, England will play Tests in Visakhapatnam, Rajkot, Ranchi and Dharamsala respectively.
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