Dharamsala, (UNI) India Captain Rohit Sharma on Wednesday stated that he wasn’t exactly sure what ‘Bazball’ means ahead of the fifth and final Test of the ICC World Test Championship series against England here on Thursday.
“I honestly don’t know what [Bazball] means, whether it is to go and strike, whether it is to go and defend and wait for the loose ball,” Rohit said in the press conference.
“I have not seen any wild swinging from anyone, so I don’t know exactly what this term means. But, yeah, clearly they have played better cricket from what they played the last time they were here.
“And you got to give credit to two of their batters who got big hundreds there, and played well. They applied their method to get some success and they got it. But other than that I don’t know what it means,” he said.
The Indian skipper was surprised by Ben Duckett’s comments which claimed that England should probably take credit for the way players from the opposition [after Yashasvi Jaiswal’s hundred] were playing aggressive cricket.
“There was a guy called Rishabh Pant in our team, probably Ben Duckett hasn’t seen him play,” Rohit said while laughing.
Meanwhile, Rohit refused to give a hint about India’s probable XI for the game in Dharamsala, stating that should the conditions be suitable for fast bowling, India might ponder bringing in a third pacer.
“If we feel the weather is going to be like this, there is a good chance [to play a third seamer]. We’ve not yet completely decided on it, but there is a good chance,” Rohit said.
“The last time we played a Test match here was in 2017 against Australia and both seamers and spinners were in play, but I’m not too sure [about this Test]. It’s a different weather here, I don’t really know too much about it.
“But looking at the pitch right now, it looks like a good pitch. Obviously you have to expect, when there’s weather like that, that there will be some movement, and maybe later on as the game goes on there will be some turn or something like that.”
The third Test begins in Dharamsala on Thursday, 7 March. England have named their playing XI for the Test with one change to their line-up from the Ranchi Test match.
