Michael Vaughan is 100 per cent sure that the Indian cricket team took a leaf out from England’s book named ‘Bazball’ and employed it to extract an incredible performance in the Kanpur Test against Bangladesh which at one stage appeared set for a drab draw. India batted an exact 52 overs during the rain-truncated contest and won the match comfortably by seven wickets to complete a 2-0 series clean sweep.
Their attacking approach to push for a result on the fourth day was widely accepted as they blazed away to 285/9d in just 34.4 overs after limiting Bangladesh to 233-all out in the first innings. Vaughan thinks that this is exactly what England have been doing regularly since Ben Stokes took over as the Test captain and Brendon McCullum was named as head coach. He put out his thoughts via a post on X (formerly Twitter) too but it was heavily criticised by users on the platform who pointed out how the likes of Virender Sehwag and Rishabh Pant have been playing this brand of cricket long before the birth of ‘Bazball’.
In a chat on Club Prairie Fire podcast also featuring Australia great Adam Gilchrist, Vaughan praised India’s performance before adding that it’s great to see them copying England.
“I’ve to say, this is a remarkable Test match,” Vaughan said. “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.”
He then quipped if England can charge India for emulating their tactics.
“Can you look at any legalities of this. Do England charge them for this?” Vaughan wondered.
Gilchrist then reminded how India’s style is being dubbed as ‘Gamball’ in reference to their head coach Gautam Gambhir.
“I think you will find Gautam Gambhir has already patented ‘GamBall’. Now, the issue is completely reversed….England need to tread carefully, very careful,” said Gilchrist.
“Gamball looks very similar to Bazball to me,” Vaughan replied.
Vaughan then shared his viral post on the podcast.
“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,” he said.
And Vaughan read a few responses ranging from India playing ‘Roball’ to asking Vaughan to keep his mouth shut. The Englishman couldn’t help himself from laughing though before Gilchrist urged the users to not be offensive.
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