Not quite Sunil Gavaskar’s ‘stupid stupid stupid’ on-air criticism of Rishabh Pant in Australia, but Geoffrey Boycott, former England opener, has delivered almost a similar verdict on some of England’s batsmen.
“Stop giving your wicket away to stupid over-aggressive shots because you can do better and England want more from you,” his Daily Telegraph column reads. “The coach Brendon McCullum is on record recently saying that England don’t talk about Bazball and need to finetune their approach to batting. So no excuses any more.”
Never to shy away from direct criticism, Boycott addressed the issues of Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope.
Here is what he had to say on Crawley: “How many more chances is Crawley going to get? He has learned nothing in his 57 Tests. A waft in the first innings caught behind and a front-foot drive in the second innings to a wide sucker ball caught at gully. It was just a replay of too many of his dismissals. Time to go. Five hundreds and an average of 31 is not good enough.”
He then turned his attention to England’s No.3 Ollie Pope, urging him to not ‘slavishly’ follow Bazball ideology.
“His problem is when he first goes in he is hyperactive, fidgety, like a cat on a hot tin roof. Pope starts like a millionaire, a shot a ball, as if he already has a hundred to his name … Early on the captain and coach sold Bazball to all the players and Ollie seems to have bought into it 100 percent and is so keen to show he is a disciple. Perhaps he feels he must play positive and aggressively or he won’t keep his place.
“He needs to go back to basic batting which is to assess the situation and bat accordingly, not bat slavishly to an ideology or how he thinks the captain and coach want him to play. Take a look at Joe Root. Joe does his own thing and makes runs and he is the best batsman in the world,” noted Boycott.
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There is some talk in the England cricketing circles that Crawley can be retained but Pope should be dropped for Jacob Bethell. Boycott positively fumes at that suggestion.
“I hear and read comments about dropping Ollie Pope and replacing him with Jacob Bethell. Pope has done better for England than Crawley. In 59 Tests he averages 35 and has 10 centuries. Yes with his talent it should be better but he has played a few remarkable innings to help win matches for England. A number three is part opening bat if the team loses an early wicket and part middle order… able to play strokes after a good start by the openers. Fat chance of that with Crawley up front. Number three is a very specialist position.Most opposition bowlers can’t wait to get their sweaters off to bowl at him. Can you imagine what the Australian seamers are thinking about this winter’s Ashes series? If Starc doesn’t get you, Hazlewood and Cummins will.”
