News Sports Cricket 'Viratball' to counter Bazball? Sunil Gavaskar on how India can avert England threat in five-match Test series

'Viratball' to counter Bazball? Sunil Gavaskar on how India can avert England threat in five-match Test series

Team India will be taking on England in a five-match Test series starting January 25 in Hyderabad and the anticipation for everyone is to see how the visitors' new approach 'Bazball' will turn out on slow and turning Indian tracks against the Indian spinners.

Sunil Gavaskar came up with an interesting response on how India can tackle England's Bazball Image Source : GETTYSunil Gavaskar came up with an interesting response on how India can tackle England's Bazball

India's biggest home assignment in the last few years is on the heels of getting kicked off in Hyderabad in a few days starting January 25. India did manage to level the series against South Africa three weeks ago and hence there is anticipation from Indian fans for the team to add a few more World Test Championship points. Another perspective is of seeing how England's aggressive approach 'Bazball' sustains in Indian conditions against Indian spinners. 

Legendary Indian batter Sunil Gavaskar admitted that England have done well with their approach and could work in India as well because if it comes off, they could really go big and there's the other side as well - you live by the sword and you die by it. 

“England have adopted a new approach in Test cricket in the last 1-2 years. It's an aggressive approach where batters look to attack. They just want to play attacking cricket no matter the situation. It'll be interesting to see if this approach works against the spinners of India,” Gavaskar said on Star Sports, however, was confident that Virat Kohli could be India's answer to Bazball.

“Yeah, conversion means having more hundreds than fifties. With Kohli, he has a similar amount of hundreds and fifties, that means he has a good conversion rate. The way he's been batting, his movement looks good. With the form that he's in, we have Viratball to counter Bazball,” the Indian great added.

Kohli was the best batter for India on the South Africa tour with a couple of fifties and has an extraordinary record against England too with 1,991 runs in 28 matches and will be hoping to continue his terrific form. India are currently in second place on the WTC table and will want to extend its lead and stay in top two after these five matches.