England will travel to India for a five-match Test series early next year.
With this style, the Three Lions have produced impressive results under the regime of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum over the last one year. While England defeated New Zealand, South Africa and India (one-off Test at Edgbaston) at home, they whitewashed Pakistan away from home and played a 1-1 drawn series in New Zealand.
England didn’t change their approach in the recently-concluded Ashes series against Australia as well. Despite being 2-0 down, they played fearlessly to bounce back and level the five-match series 2-2.
The tour of India early next year will pose the next biggest challenge to England but swashbuckling opener Zak Crawley feels it presents them with an ‘amazing opportunity’ to showcase ‘Bazball’.
The Stokes-led English side will travel to India for a five-match Test series, scheduled to be played from January 25 to March 11.
“I don’t really know much about their grounds,” Crawley was quoted as saying by ESPNCricinfo.
Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Rajkot, Ranchi and Dharamsala will stage the five Tests between India and England.
“Sometimes in India it seams and swings a bit — and they’ve got unbelievable seamers — so hopefully there are a couple of pitches there that are like that as well, that will suit us a bit more,” he said.
With the ODI World Cup slated to be held later this year, England’s Test cricketers will get an extended break before their next assignment in India.
“I can’t remember having six months off (between Tests) before,” Crawley said.
Zak Crawley was the highest run-getter for England in the recently-concluded Ashes series. He amassed 480 runs from five Tests at an average of 53.33 and a stunning strike rate of 88.72, including one hundred and two fifties.
While Crawley is keen to take ‘Bazball’ to India, he also admitted that adapting to conditions will be the key.
“I’ll tick off a bit of T20 and hopefully a bit of white-ball stuff somewhere, but then (getting) back into it in India will be an amazing opportunity for our team to see how we go in those conditions,” Crawley stated.
“But if it’s spinning…I feel like we play spin really well as well. We’ll just have to adapt, see what we get. But they are pretty unknown grounds — I don’t know if they’re going to be raggers like Ahmedabad and Chennai, where we were last time,” he remarked.
(With PTI Inputs)