"Bazball isn’t just aggressive cricket, it is defenceless cricket" - Ravichandran Ashwin

Team India's off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin recently shared his take on England's Bazball approach following the five-match Test series between the two cricketing giants.

Ashwin opined that England came to India with a mindset of playing attacking cricket. He suggested that the visitors had decided that they weren't going to trust their defence.

Speaking in his latest YouTube video, India veteran spinner remarked:

"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 also expressed surprise at England's star batter Joe Root tweaking his natural game to suit the team's plans. He said:

"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."

All five matches of the series produced results. Ashwin claimed that had Australia played against India on the same pitches, there would have been a couple of draws.

"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.

England kicked off the tour with a 28-run win over India in Hyderabad. However, they failed to replicate the same in the remaining fixtures. The Men in Blue ultimately completed a 4-1 series victory.

---

"It felt like they'd gone too far" - Ravichandran Ashwin on James Anderson's comments on England chasing down 600

During the second Test of the series in Visakhapatnam, England's James Anderson said during a press conference that England could even chase down a 600-run total in the fourth innings.

Ravichandran Ashwin, however, feels that the English players went overboard with their aggressive mindset. He said:

"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."

England eventually failed to chase the target of 399 in the second Test, suffering a 106-run defeat.