Team India’s head coach Rahul Dravid has restrained himself from commenting on England’s ‘BazBall’ strategy, saying that he doesn’t know about the same. The Men in Blue conceded a defeat in the fifth Test by seven wickets against England at Edgbaston in Birmingham. The hosts came back from behind to level the five-match series 2-2, chasing a record target of 378 runs.
Incidentally, Bazball describes England’s aggressive approach to Test cricket under their new coach Brendon McCullum (Baz is his nickname). Ever since he took over as the team’s coach in red-ball format, England have won four out of four games, all of them chasing challenging targets.
While Dravid stated that he has no idea of ‘BazBall’, he credited Ben Stokes & Co. for the brand of the cricket they played in this Test match. Speaking at the post-match presentation ceremony, he said:
“I don’t know what it is. But what I can say is that the kind of cricket they have played in the last four Test matches has been very good. It is not easy to chase in England, but they are doing it really well. When your players are in good form, you can play positive cricket, like we did in that innings when Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja were batting.”
“They deserved to win this Test match” – Rahul Dravid
Rahul Dravid lamented that India lost the fifth Test against England because they couldn’t play good cricket over five days.
“We had our opportunities, we played well over the first three days. We couldn’t maintain that. That’s why Test cricket is hard. And that’s why Test cricket means that you have got to be able to keep putting those performances right through the five days. We were not able to do that and they did that better than us and they deserved to win this Test match,” Dravid concluded.
India’s next Test assignment will be against Bangladesh away from home. Both teams will lock horns with each other in a two-match Test series as part of the ICC World Test Championship (WTC).
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