In the aftermath of the humiliating 1-4 series loss to India, English batting legend Geoffrey Boycott has made a scathing attack on the England team management’s decision, urging them to look beyond the ageing pacer James Anderson, and added that the visitors were lucky that they didn’t have to deal with the likes of Virat Kohli and KL Rahul during the series.
“Jimmy Anderson deserves all the adulation and plaudits for staying fit to play 187 Test matches and reach 700 wickets. England cannot keep wrapping him in cotton wool and picking him on sentiment forever. In a year-and-a-half England’s next big challenge will be going to Australia to try and win back the Ashes,” Boycott said.
“Jimmy will be 43 by the next Ashes and I don’t see him being able to do the hard yards on tough, bone hard pitches and in hot weather. England have to find some young seamers who can bowl 20 overs and come back the next day ready for more,” he wrote in his column in The Telegraph.
Boycott wasn’t convinced by skipper Ben Stokes’ statement on ‘learning from the tour’, and felt that the inexperience in the English spin attack also contributed to their heavy loss.
“Stokes says they will learn from this tour. I am not convinced. They will go back home and revert to type and beat ordinary West Indies and Sri Lanka teams and India will be forgotten as a distant memory,” he said.
“It wouldn’t frighten anyone: two raw kids in Tom Hartley and Shoaib Bashir with little first-class bowling as spinners, an ineffectual fast bowler in Mark Wood who just bangs the ball into the track with little movement, a great seamer in Anderson who was used sparingly because he is at the end of his career and an all-rounder Ben Stokes who was unfit to bowl until a bit in the last Test. No wonder it was 4-1,” Boycott added.
Four Indians dominated the top five wicket-taker’s list during the series, and Hartley, with 22 wickets from 5 games, was the lone Englishman in the list.
“Inexperienced kids were never going to outbowl experienced Indian spinners in India. If anyone thought that then it was daft, wishful thinking. England were lucky that Virat Kohli was unavailable for all the series and KL Rahul only played one Test,” he said.
Boycott also criticised the ultra-aggressive approach of England batters, and their inability to deal with the left-arm wrist spin of Kuldeep Yadav during the series.
“They (English batters) were not confident of their ability to defend, especially with fielders around the bat, so they looked to attack instead. That idea is fraught with danger against quality spinners,” he said.
“I was amazed how many of them could not read the wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav and by the end of the series were still no wiser. A bowler can be a mystery to you the first couple of times you have to face him. But at international level, batsmen should be able to find a way to work him out. Too many never looked comfortable against him and were reduced to staying back and trying to play him off the pitch,” the legendary batter further said.