Wicketkeeper-batter Sam Billings has claimed that it would be "stupid" to dismiss the Bazball approach adopted by the England team in Test matches, especially after the England Lions defeated South Africa in a four-day match.
South Africa Test captain Dean Elgar stated earlier that he wasn’t too concerned about the new approach adopted by Ben Stokes and his men, an approach that has won them 4 games in a row at home.
“There was often parity between England and New Zealand (during the Test series) and had New Zealand taken their opportunities, and their catches, then things could have been very different. England would have come away with egg on their faces." Elgar had said recently.
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Billings, who played splendidly for his 92 and played a pivotal role in enabling the England Lions in handing the Proteas a massive defeat in the tour game, cautioned Elgar to disregard Bazball at his own risk.
“We’ve (England Lions) beaten an international team over four days by an innings in a manner of scoring 5.74 an over. You’d be pretty stupid to ignore that if I’m honest. If that’s not a wake-up call… because we’re not even the best XI," Billings was quoted as saying by Daily Mail.
“So, it’s up to them, really, but I think that’s laid out a pretty strong statement in the way we want the cricket to be played, but also being able to execute it and having the players to do that was really impressive," he added.
The 31-year-old praised his team’s performance after winning the tour game.
“This (Canterbury ground where the Lions-SA game was played) is a very similar ground to Lord’s (where the first England-South Africa Test will be played) with the slope and things like that. There’s a couple of guys who Ollie Robinson had on toast this week. He bowled exceptionally well. It’s a similar kind of ground and a similar kind of feel. So the fact we got 20 wickets on a pretty flat pitch that had six heavy rollers on… What did we get? 672? It’s impossible not to take confidence, certainly as a group, but some of the guys are in the Test squad as well and they’ll take a lot of confidence into next week," he remarked.
Elgar and his men scored 433 against the England Lions in the first innings, but the home team replied by scoring a massive 672 thanks to scintillating centuries from Harry Brook (140) and Ben Duckett (145), as well as half-centuries from Dan Lawrence (97) and Billings (92).
The first Test will be played at the Lord’s Cricket Ground on Wednesday (August 17).
(DAILY MAIL INPUTS)
