"Gamball looks very similar to Bazball to me" - Michael Vaughan takes shot at India for copying England's style in 2nd Bangladesh Test 2024
Former English captain Michael Vaughan accused India of copying the Bazball style of batting made famous by England in Tests over the last two years. Since Brendon McCullum took over as head coach and Ben Stokes became Test captain, England have adopted an all-out attacking batting style in red-ball cricket to achieve tremendous success.
Meanwhile, the second India-Bangladesh Test saw rain play spoilsport in the first three days with only 35 overs of action possible. However, the hosts forced a result in their favor by taking the aggressive route with the bat in the middle of Day 4, scoring 285/9 declared in under 35 overs in their first innings.
Vaughan took to his social media immidiately and highlighted how India were playing like Bazball, leading to backlash from the Indian fans.
Yet, two days later on the Club Prairie Fire podcast with former Australian wicket-keeper Adam Gilchrist, Vaughan doubled down on his take.
After Gilchrist mentioned how India's style was being called as Gamball with reference to their new head coach Gautam Gambhir, Vaughan said [30:39]:
"Gamball looks very similar to Bazball to me. I did notice that yesterday (Day 4 of India-Bangladesh Test) when it was happening. This is good to watch. So I tweeted ‘I see England are playing Bazball.’ It had 1.2 million views and had 2000 responses. Can you look at any legalities of this. Do England charge them for this?"
He added:
"I’ve to say, this is a remarkable Test match. India went out to bat and look Indian cricket is fantastic with everything they deliver. It is great to see India now becoming Bazballers. They got 285 in 34.4 overs, so they copied England. It’s off the scale to think that India are now copying England, that is terrific."
During their first innings batting display, India became the fastest to team scores of 50, 100, 150, 200 and 250 in Test history. Their run-rate of 7.36 across the two innings was also the highest ever by a side in a Test match.
Rohit Sharma's men chased down their target of 95 in a mere 17.2 overs with seven wickets in hand to complete a 2-0 series win over Bangladesh.
"To be honest, we had to think a lot to keep the game moving forward" - Rohit Sharma on India's aggressive batting in 2nd Bangladesh Test
Team India skipper Rohit Sharma said after the second Bangladesh Test that the side were prepared to be bowled out for 100 to take the game forward and force a result.
Day 4 started with Bangladesh on 107/3 in their first innings and ended with them at 26/2 in the second innings as India bulldozed the visitors with their brave batting and incisive bowling.
At the post-match presentation, Rohit said:
"To be honest, we had to think a lot to keep the game moving forward. When we came on day four, we wanted to get them [Bangladesh] out as early as possible and see what we can do with the bat. It was not about the runs we got but the overs we wanted to bowl at them. The batters were willing to take the risk and we were ready to give ourselves a chance at a result."
It was India's 18th consecutive Test series win at home with the streak extending to over a decade since their last defeat to England in 2012.