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Former England captain Pietersen took to X to reply to a fan who asked him why England’s Bazball approach is not working in the ongoing series against India.
Kevin Pietersen explains why Bazball is not working in India. (Picture Credit: AP, X)
Legendary batter and former England captain Kevin Pietersen took to X on Sunday (January 26) to reply to a fan’s question in which he was asked about why Bazball is not working in India. Bazball is an aggressive brand of playing cricket that the English team has opted for since the appointment of former New Zealand captain and wicketkeeper-batter Brendon McCullum as head coach. The new style has helped England produce outstanding results in Test cricket since June 2022, but the approach flopped against Team India last year during the five-match Test series and in the ongoing T20I series as well, where England has lost the first two matches.
According to Pietersen, who played 277 matches for England across formats during his nine-year-long international career, Bazball doesn’t work against high-quality spin consistently.
“Bazball don’t work against high quality spin consistently! There is an art to playing spin in the subcontinent,” Pietersen tweeted.
In the first T20I of the ongoing five-match series, English batters had no answer to questions asked by the Indian spin trio of Varun Chakravarthy, Axar Patel, and Ravi Bishnoi. The high-profile English batters could only manage to score 132 runs in 20 overs and went on to lose the match by 7 wickets at Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
In the second T20I as well, England failed to deliver against Indian spinners and posted a total of 165 runs for the loss of nine wickets, which the Suryakumar Yadav-led side chased down in 19.2 overs for the loss of eight wickets.
During the Q&A session on X, the 44-year-old former RCB and Delhi Capitals batter was also asked to name his favourite cricketer of present times, and in reply, he mentioned Harry Brook’s name but also took a cheeky dig at him.
“Harry Brook (without the smog comment),” Pietersen tweeted.
Brook was heavily trolled by fans and many former greats of the game for his bizarre comments after England’s defeat in the first T20I against India.
After England went down by 7 wickets in the series opener played on Wednesday (January 22) at Eden Gardens, Brook said, “I didn’t face Bishnoi, but Chakravarthy is an exceptionally good bowler. He’s tough to pick. I think actually with the smog the other night, it was a lot harder to pick as well. Hopefully, the air is a bit clearer here (Chennai), and we can see the ball a bit easier.”
