“Bazball isn’t just aggressive cricket, it is defenceless cricket” – Ravichandran Ashwin

India’s veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin shared his two cents on England’s Bazball approach. Ashwin reckons Bazball isn’t just aggressive cricket but it is defenceless cricket. England’s aggressive approach didn’t work in tough Indian conditions as they lost the five-match Test series by 4-1, after suffering an ignominious loss of an innings and 64 runs in the fifth Test at Dharamsala.

Ashwin observed that after the first Test match, England’s batters were not going to play defensively.

Ashwin said on his YouTube Channel, “The one thing that I personally understood after the first Test is that Bazball isn’t just aggressive cricket, it is defenceless cricket. They aren’t going to play a defensive shot at all. They are going to get out if they play defence.”

Ashwin shared his surprise that even Joe Root, who has a solid defence against the spinners, decided to play aggressively throughout the series.

“To my surprise, Joe Root also agreed to their game plan. Because if you take world cricket’s best defence rankings, Joe Root is an easy number 1 on that list against spin.”

The veteran off-spinner feels if Australia had played on the same pitches, there would have been a couple of draws as the pitches were good for batting.

“There were many times in this series when I thought, if this were against Australia instead of England, we could have seen two draws instead of results. At least one, because of the classic cricket pitches. But because of this new English approach to going for the kill, they put us under very unique pressure. Them playing three sessions is equal to us playing six in terms of runs scored, and so every match was bound to go for a result,” Ashwin added.

Meanwhile, Ashwin feels England went too far ahead when James Anderson said in the press conference that they would even look to chase down 600 runs in the second Test match.

“James Anderson went to a press conference in the second Test after winning the first considerably well. Much respect to them for winning that. He told the press that, even if the 4th inning target is 500 or 600, we’ll finish it in 60 overs. Even though it was an example of their positive mindset, it felt like they’d gone too far.”

Ashwin will now be seen in action in the IPL for Rajasthan Royals.