London: Former skipper Michael Vaughan has issued a warning to England ahead of the upcoming five-Test series in India, saying their Bazball approach may get “absolutely destroyed” against the lethal spin attack of the hosts.
England’s aggressive approach, termed as Bazball named after their head coach Brendon McCullum, has created a lot of buzz in the cricketing world in the last one and a half years with the team winning 13 of their last 18 red-ball games.
But Vaughan pointed out how England struggled 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.”
England will play five Tests in India as part of their ICC World Test Championships cycle starting January 25 in Hyderabad.
“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 Monday named four specialist spinners — Jack Leach, teenage leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed, and uncapped duo of Tom Hartley and Shoaib Bashir, in the 16-member squad for the Test series in India.
After Hyderabad, England will play the rest four Tests in Visakhapatnam, Rajkot, Ranchi, and Dharamsala respectively.
PTI