We have Viratball to counter Bazball – Sunil Gavaskar ahead of India-England Test series

As India gear up for an important Test series against England which will play a crucial role in shaping up the two teams’ fates as part of the World Test championship, before the battle hits the 22 yards, opinions have started coming in on how India plan to counter the ‘Bazball’ strategy. The latest addition to this prized list was none other than former Indian captain, Sunil Gavaskar.

Gavaskar’s brutal assessment of England’s latest approach in the longer format of the game labelled as Bazball would certainly be raising the stakes of the upcoming series. Talking to Star Sports, Gavaskar said that India has their own brand of aggression and it is safe to call that ‘Viratball’.

The Indian cricket legend said, “Yeah, conversion means having more hundreds than fifties. With Kohli, he has a similar number of hundreds and fifties, that means he has a good conversion rate. The way he's been batting, his movement looks good. With the form that he's in, we have Viratball to counter Bazball.”

He further added, “England have adopted a new approach in Test cricket in the last 1-2 years.It's an aggressive approach where batters look to attack. They just want to play attacking cricket no matter the situation. It'll be interesting to see if this approach works against the spinners of India.”

Team India will be hoping to extract as many wins as they can from this 5-match series which will do them a world of good in the race to the Mace, with the final of the WTC to be played in 2025.