After Day 3 of the Test at Birmingham, Indian pacer Akash Deep had simplified England’s revolutionary brand of aggressive cricket where ‘draw’ was taboo. He commented on his rival team’s tactics when he was asked a question about the surprisingly slow and dead England pitches.
“When I landed here, I thought there would be swing and seam movement in England but that was not to be. Yeh log aise his wicket bunaate hai, yeh run-wala Test cricket khelte hain. (These guys are making these kinds of wickets, they are playing Test cricket that’s about run-making),” he said.
At Edgbaston, on a mostly dead pitch that was conducive to Bazball, India would beat England at their own game. In the second innings, Shubman Gill refused to declare, they stretched their lead frustratingly long so much that England would need to score 536 on the final day.
Just last year at Rajkot when the two teams met, England needed 557 in the final innings to win. There was the usual England bravado, they said “we can even chase down 800”. England folded for 122 and lost the game by 434 runs. No batsman tried to play a draw, everyone wanted to chase down the impossible total.
Unlike in 2024, England this time is having second thoughts. They are using the ‘draw’ word. England’s assistant Marcus Trescothick, a classic Test opener, defended the team’s Bazball approach but also gave a rather pragmatic option.
“I think if you get to the point where you can draw the game, of course, we’re not stupid enough to understand that you have to just win or lose. There are three results possible in every game that you play. But we have done some things in our time that we are different to what we’ve done before,” he went to say.
He also asked if there will come a point in the game where he will ask his players to shelve their aggressive shots and play the draw? “I don’t think we use that sort of language. That’s not the sort of changing room we are. But we’re not naive enough to know that it’s a very challenging total. So you go there and bunker and just dig it out – some players may do that. You just don’t really know. It’s individuals that can sort of adapt to the game and understand what’s happening,” he said.
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The former England opener said that “all three results are possible in every game that you play”. But after that he went on to add: “We have done some things in our time that are different to what we’ve done before. Well, I think you could see from our first innings, we were three down overnight. We came out the next day, obviously we lost a couple of early wickets and then we had a monster partnership that really sort of put us back into the game. So it’s definitely possible. I think once the ball goes softer, it definitely gets a little bit easier and hasn’t seem as much as what it does when it’s new.”
That was England being ambitious again. Yesterday it was England coach Jeetan Patel talking about chasing impossible targets and now Trescothick hinting at the possibility.
India’s all-rounder was asked about Jeetan’s ‘we don’t do draw’ statement to which he had said: “In press conference, you can talk whatever you want to talk. That’s none of my business. But, at the end of the day, you have to go out there and perform and take those 20 wickets. That’s all that matters.”
