While the two-match Test series between England and New Zealand has already started on Wednesday at the Lord’s cricket ground, it will be a warm-up for them before the much-anticipated World Test Championship Final against India on June 18. After that, India will play a five-match red-ball series against England as well. However, before the series started, former England batsman Kevin Pietersen has urged the team to start looking for someone like Indian all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja before they taking on India in the Test series and then the Ashes against Australia later this year as well.
Referring to Jadeja as an “absolute superstar”, Kevin Pietersen in a blog post shared that England must find an all-rounder like him who is a left-arm spinner while being great with the bat as well.
“It frustrates me that there still isn’t an international-standard English left-arm spin bowler who bats,” the former England captain again shared in his blog. Requesting the England Cricket Board (ECB) to look for someone like Ravindra Jadeja, Pietersen said “someone of that ilk is priceless” across all three formats.
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“They must identify and properly develop a left-arm spin all-rounder or that department will always be a weakness,” he again shared.
The veteran player, who is known for his reverse sweep shots, advised upcoming cricketers in England to copy Ravindra Jadeja in order to have a cricketing career in Test cricket for a long time as well. He again said that England is not considering a spinner in the first Test against New Zealand, and seeing their shuffle in the batting order as the players are getting injured as well as continuous experiment with them, he believed they need to have a settled playing XI soon as well.
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However, Kevin Pietersen remembered that during the 2010-11 Ashes series in Australia, England had a strong team which included the batting great Alastair Cook, Andrew Strauss, Jonathan Trott, Paul Collingwood, Ian Bell, Matt Prior, and he himself in the top seven as well.