England’s batters could not read the wrist spin of Kuldeep: Boycott
The English legend says that they were not confident of their ability to defend and they were also not comfortable against the leftarmer as they stayed back and tried to play him off the pitch
The English batters were all at sea against Kuldeep’s wrist spin.
The legendary Geoff Boycott said the England batters’ failure to negate leftarm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav was one of the main reasons behind the team’s thumping defeat against India in the recent Test series.
England started the fivematch series with a win at Hyderabad, but it went progressively worse for it and lost the rubber 14 as Kuldeep walked away with 19 wickets from four games. “I was amazed how many of them could not read the wrist spinner Kuldeep and by the end of the series were still no wiser. A bowler can be a mystery to you the first couple of times you have to face him.
“But at international level, batters should be able to find a way to work him out. Too many never looked comfortable against him and were reduced to staying back and trying to play him off the pitch,” wrote Boycott in his column in The Telegraph.
Boycott was also critical of the overtly aggressive approach of England batters in the series.
“They (English batters) were not confident of their ability to defend, especially with fielders around the bat, so they looked to attack instead. That idea is fraught with danger against quality spinners,” he said. The former England opener, who scored 8114 runs in Test cricket, said, “That is why we saw some daft dismissals like Ollie Pope running down the pitch to be stumped by yards and Ben Duckett jumping down to Ashwin to be bowled off an underside edge.”
Boycott then underlined the importance for batters to have a tight defence.
“On flat batting pitches at home and in Pakistan and New Zealand our batters have had great fun. Indian pitches have been a bit different. Having a good defence is part of batting.”