“Important to get that balance between scoring and defending”: England skipper Joe Root reacts to Geoff Boycott’s criticism 

England captain Joe Root has opined that batting in cricket is as much about scoring runs as it is about defending well. He stated that it was important to find the right balance between the two to succeed in red-ball cricket.

Joe Root was responding to criticism from former captain Geoffrey Boycott, who had slammed England batsmen over their poor technique and application following the Nottingham Test.

At a pre-match conference ahead of the second Test against India at Lord’s, Joe Root said:

“I think in Test cricket it is such a fine margin, it’s a fine balance. Of course you need a strong technique, you need to be able to trust your defence. But you also need to be able to apply pressure on occasions. Sometimes, if you just allow bowlers to bowl at you... One thing he (Boycott) did say was about getting off strike. I think it is really important to be able to rotate the strike, get down the other end. You don’t need to necessarily crash it to the boundary.”

“It is important to get that balance between scoring and defending and managing several passages of play. It is certainly something that we discuss as a team, how we can do that better. Ultimately, it is about managing that out on the field and not just doing it in practice," Joe Root admitted.

The England captain yet again played a lone hand for the team in the batting department in the first Test, registering scores of 64 and 109. England were all out for 183 in the first innings and 303 in the second.

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What Geoffrey Boycott said while slamming England’s batsmen

Following the draw in the Nottingham Test, Boycott hit out at England’s batsmen for their lack of skills in the Test format. Writing in a column for The Telegraph, Boycott claimed that a few good balls are enough to get batters out these days. He wrote:

“The culture of cricket has changed. Many of us batsmen love playing shots and because of the diet of one day cricket, modern players are pretty good at it, but it is their defensive technique that lets them down. It might sound unfashionable because of franchise leagues to talk about staying in and being defensive but, like Goochie said, teams only have to bowl a few good balls because they know batsmen will soon be tempted to play a big shot.”

“The talk is all about strike rates but for Test match cricket that is a load of rubbish. If you can’t defend, then top bowlers in Test match cricket with a newish ball will find your weaknesses. What is the point of having a range of eye-catching strokes if you can’t stay in? That is the root cause of his problems,” Boycott added about England’s batting struggles.

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With rain forcing a draw in the Nottingham Test, India and are England are all set to battle it out in the second Test at Lord’s, starting Thursday, August 12.