During England’s five-match Test series against India, legendary hitter Geoffrey Boycott voiced his dissatisfaction with the bowling options available to them. India, who was missing a few key players from their batting lineup, crushed England by 4-1 in the series. The visitors won the first game of the series in Hyderabad, but after that, things didn’t go well for them as they lost four straight games.
An inexperienced India batting lineup faced off against an inexperienced England spinner lineup, and the former won with an outstanding performance on home soil. During the Indian tour, two English bowlers, Tom Hartley and Shoaib Bashir, made their debuts for their country.
Boycott discussed England’s bowling lineup and stated that he did not find it shocking that Ben Stokes and his team lost a crushing defeat in the five-match Test Series.
“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 wrote in his column for the Telegraph.
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Indian bowlers dominated the list of the top five wicket-takers, with only one bowler from England making the list. With 22 wickets in 5 matches, Hartley was England’s leading wicket-taker.
Boycott went on to say that England was fortunate that KL Rahul and Virat Kohli were missing out the series, as their weak bowling lineup would not have sustained even this much infornt of these two cricketing stalwarts.
“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 added.
After losing the series, England has now slided down to eighth position in the World Test Championship points table.
The post ‘It wouldn’t frighten anyone’: Geoffrey Boycott Unimpressed with England’s Bowling Lineup in Test Series Against India appeared first on Cricket Country.
