File photo of Joe Root (left) with Andy Flower.
With their arrival in Chennai a day earlier for a full-fledged series, beginning with first Test in Chennai from February 5, England have reached India high on confidence following their 2-0 rout over Sri Lanka recently.
However, India will be a different animal to face altogether given their form at home and not to forget the morale-boosting historic series win Down Under. England, on the other hand, will draw more confidence from the fact that they have already defeated India at their own backyard eight years ago when coach Andy Flower and side prevailed India 2-1 over four matches.
Former Zimbabwe cricketer Flower, who led England to three Ashes successes, remembered how somebody like Alistair Cook (562 runs in the series) anchored innings throughout the series while names like Kevin Pietersen, Jonathan Trott among others added pace to it.
The former England coach now expects the likes of Joe Root to step into Cook's shoes during the series while names like Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes will take care of the run rate.
"Joe should be the rock around which we can build big innings like Cook was in our team,’ Flower told Daily Mail. ‘He’s our most skilful player of spin and can combine a really nice, soft defence with the alternating of strike and occasionally jumping out of his bubble and scoring boundaries.
"Then we need guys like Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes to come to the party with a more pro-active game, a bit like Kevin Pietersen did in 2012. Where Root might be playing at a certain tempo, those guys can up it and really put pressure on the opposition spinners."
