‘No one said it was reckless in NZ or when Joe Root played reverse sweep’ - Jeetan Patel defends England’s Bazball strategy

After not being able to produce a result with the bat so far in the Ashes 2023, many former cricketers in the form of Michael Vaughan, Sir Geoffrey Boycott, and Kevin Pietersen have criticized England’s strategy in the five-match series. However, assistant coach Jeetan Patel is not ready to listen to criticisms as he reminded that the Bazball philosophy has given them success against all the other nations that they have played and thus, they are not going to change at the moment.

Patel also added that no one called their game reckless when the team was delivering results in the past. He went on to defend Harry Brook’s dismissal, saying that even Joe Root played similar shots in the past and got results. Thus, Patel is backing his team and mentioned that the team is looking to get better going forward.

“No one said it was reckless in New Zealand, no one said it was reckless when Joe Root was playing the reverse sweep, so like I said, our guys want to entertain. I think Brooky's option was to take that. That was the only place he was going to hit four to maybe switch the momentum over. We're about trying to soak up pressure and apply it where we can. Part of trying to apply that was to get them off that length, which is obviously tough to score,” Patel said at the end of the day’s play.

“We've seen in the last year this is how this team operates and wants to get better and better and wants to push boundaries, wants to break more records. I think part of that has been having the courage enough to be able to go 'right, let's see how far we can take it'. I think that's the most important thing,” he added.

Notably, England are trailing by 221 runs after Day 3 and thus, they need to return back to their absolute best in order to win the Lord’s Test. The morning session of Day 4 will be very crucial for the Ben Stokes-led side as it can decide the fate of the match.