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India captain Rohit Sharma destroyed England’s Bazball pride ahead of the fifth and final Test at the HPCA Stadium in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh. Attending the press conference on the eve of the fifth Test, Rohit said that he still doesn’t know what exactly Bazball means. Bazball is a term that gained popularity since former New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum, affectionately known as Baz, became the head coach of the England Test team and Ben Stokes took over captaincy duties from Joe Root.
England have been determined to break the conventions of Test cricket by playing positive cricket from the start. It also brought them great success until this series in India. This was the first defeat England suffered in a Test series in the Bazball era of McCullum and Stokes.
India captain Rohit admitted that England have played better cricket than the Joe Root-led team when they last toured here in 2021, but he was yet to discover the true meaning of Bazball.
“I just don’t know what Bazball means. I haven’t seen wild hitting from anyone. England have played better cricket than here last time. But I still don’t know what Bazball means,” Rohit told reporters on Wednesday. .
Rohit also made a witty comment about England opener Ben Duckett, who had said that India’s Yashasvi Jaiswal learned to play attacking cricket after watching Bazball.
“When you see opposition players playing like that, it almost seems like we should take credit that they are playing differently to how other people play Test cricket,” Duckett had said.
Rohit reminded Duckett about India’s wicketkeeper-batsman Rishabh Pant, who is currently out of action due to multiple injuries he sustained during a car accident in December 2022.
“There was a guy called Rishabh Pant in our team, Ben Duckett probably hasn’t seen him play,” Rohit said.
Jaiswal has been the top scorer in this series by far. The left-hander has amassed 655 runs in four Tests at an average of 93. He scored consecutive double centuries in the third and fourth Tests. His strike rate of 78 is the second best among all batsmen who have scored more than 650 runs bilaterally.
‘A series of comebacks for India’: Rohit Sharma
Talking about the series in general, Rohit said that the Indian team’s ability to bounce back from difficult situations has been the highlight of the team’s performance.
“It has been a series of comebacks for us. Whenever they put pressure on us we were able to put pressure on the rival again. That was a pleasure for me,” he said.
In the series finale here, Rohit said that he hopes the Dharamsala track is good.
“It looks like a typical Indian field. There will be some movement when the temperature drops, but it looks like a good field,” he said.