Kolkata: Former legendary English opener Geoffrey Boycott ,said that the Indian team is way ahead of the English team according to a report from The Telegraph.He said, “Alastair Cook is kidding himself if he thinks that England are close to matching India.”
He pointed out certain important reasons because of which the English team succumbed to their third loss in the series therefore, surrendering the series to India 3-0 with a match to be played.
He said that a one-dimensional approach, poor captaincy, and poor team selection led to England’s failure. According to a report from The Telegraph, he said that Cook and England coach Bayliss missed out on an important ploy when they selected the team for the fourth test.They should have selected an extra spinner instead of a fast bowler.Also, they were a batsman short and according to him, they needed an extra batsman as the weight of the entire batting department fell upon the shoulders of Cook, Jennings, Root , Bairstow and Jos Butler.
He also felt that the English spinners were overworked and both the spinners-Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid had bowled for 108 overs yielding 366 runs in the process and taking only six wickets.Also, the quality of the English spin attack was way below par as compared to their Indian counterparts.
Boycott maintained the fact that poor captaincy led to England’s defeat. James Anderson, who is the leader of England’s pace bowling unit and is a lethal bowler with the new ball in hand was made to wait for 129 overs before he could get the same.The first new ball was given to Jake Ball instead of the experienced Anderson.This let the Indian batsmen settle down and by the time Anderson came on to bowl, the Indian batsmen had already settled themselves and were comfortable at the crease. Boycott also feels that England couldn’t capitalize after winning the toss and electing to bat first.From being at 230-3 they crumbled to 400 and made way for a fantastic start for India in their first innings.He also said that the English batsmen found it very difficult to play spin.
He also thought that the one-dimensional mindset affected the players very badly. James Anderson, instead of appreciating Kohli’s knock credited the pitch for he felt that it overshadowed Kohli’s weaknesses. Also they did not look into the Indian pitches and plan their teams and bowling strategies. The ball generally turns in this part of the world.However, not reading into this too much, the Englishmen set a typical English field with four slip fielders and a gully. They still hoped that on these slow wickets, they would make the batsman edge and nick deliveries to the following fielders.
Last but not the least, Boycott has mentioned about the Director of the English team, retired English opener Andrew Strauss and put it entirely on him to decide what changes should be made to develop the team.
Another question comes to mind.Is Cook’s time for captaincy over?Is Joe Root ready to take over the captaincy of the team from Cook? However, only time would be able to determine what is going to happen in the future.