'No team meetings, belief': Joe Root dissects Bazball as England impress in India

With Bazball coming to India for the first time, there are many myths and misconceptions associated with England Test team’s style of play that has now been busted. The Indians fans have realised that Bazball doesn’t only mean scoring at a faster rate, but also inculcates playing aggressive cricket through their fielding, bowling and aggression on the ground. The bold attitude of England team allowed them to stun Team India in the first Test of the five-match series as they took a 1-0 lead with a 28-run win. Despite giving away a lead of 190 runs in the first innings, England managed to turn things around on the back of Ollie Pope’s attacking 196 off 278 balls as debutant Tom Hartley took seven wickets in the second innings to help England clinch a famous win. Read: Pragyan Ojha asks Shreyas Iyer to go back and score runs in domestic cricket India bounced back with a 106-run win at Visakhapatnam and the scores are levelled 1-1 after first two Tests with more drama and entertainment expected in the next three games. England star batter Joe Root has now explained how team meetings are done under Ben Stokes’ captaincy and coach Brendon McCullum’s leadership and reaffirmed his belief in the philosophy. Root added that there are no formal meetings now for the England Test team. “We don’t really do team meetings anymore,” Root explained to JioCinema. “That’s one of the great things about how we do all of our conversations away from the game and just that enjoyment and buzz about spending time with each other. We don’t have to sit in a meeting room and I think it’s more authentic and more genuine when you can have it around a dinner table. Having a coffee in the morning or whatever, I think that’s when you do your best learning.” On whether England doubted Bazball after the first innings of the first Test, Root said: “No. Regardless, of the result of the game, we’re always going to play how we know. It’s what’s given us success for a good period of time now. It’s what brings the best out of us. We’ve been in similar situations before. The last time we played India in England, in that one-off Test, we were miles behind in the game and we managed to chase that score down. There have been numerous other occasions where we’ve done things that we never thought we could have done before. So, we’ll never stop believing, we’ll never feel like we’re out of the game.” Read: Atherton explains why Stokes is struggling against Bumrah Root also adjudged Pope’s 196 in the first Test as “one of the best overseas innings” in India. “Ollie went out and probably played one of the best overseas innings you’ll see in these conditions, especially against that attack on that surface,” he said. “The more time we spend in these conditions, hopefully, we can continue to familiarize ourselves and keep that calmness about how we go about things. But also, when the chances are there and when the time’s right, we can keep applying pressure and then try to attack at the right moment.” On England’s focus on Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, Root explained that the team is always working on keeping them quiet. “You mentioned two of the greats of the modern era. Of course, there’s going to be focus. We know how good they are and they are also very senior within this current Indian batting lineup. So clearly they’ve got a big role to play within this Test team. You want to make sure that you try and get on top of them early. They’ve got the ability to get big scores and we’ve been on the wrong end of that a few times, so it would be nice to try and keep them as quiet as we can throughout the series.” Catch all the live action from India vs England – 3rd Test, Day One, February 15, Thursday, 9:30 AM onwards, LIVE & Exclusive on JioCinema, Sports18 1 (SD +HD) and Colors Cineplex (SD+HD)