Team India’s off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin recently opened up on England’s Bazball approach following the five-match Test series between India and England. Ashwin also added that England came to India with a mindset of playing aggressive cricket. He shared that the visitors had decided that they weren’t going to defend as well.

Speaking in his latest YouTube video, the veteran India spinner stated: “The one thing that I personally understood after the first Test is that Bazball isn’t just aggressive cricket, it is defenceless cricket. They aren’t going to play a defensive shot at all. They are going to get out if they play defence. To my surprise, Joe Root also agreed to their game plan. Because if you take world cricket’s best defence rankings, Joe Root is an easy number 1 on that list against spin.”

Meanwhile, all five matches of the series showed results. Ashwin added that had Australia played against India on the same pitches, there would have been a couple of draws as well. Notably, England started the tour with a 28-run win over India in Hyderabad but then India bounced back and registered a 4-1 series victory.

“There were many times in this series when I thought, if this were against Australia instead of England, we could have seen two draws instead of results. At least one, because of the classic cricket pitches. But because of this new English approach to going for the kill, they put us under very unique pressure. Them playing three sessions is equal to us playing six in terms of runs scored, and so every match was bound to go for a result,” Ashwin added.

“James Anderson went to a press conference in the second Test after winning the first considerably well. Much respect to them for winning that. He told the press that, even if the 4th inning target is 500 or 600, we’ll finish it in 60 overs. Even though it was an example of their positive mindset, it felt like they’d gone too far,” R Ashwin concluded.