India vs England Tests: Legendary batter Sunil Gavaskar is looking forward to India's upcoming Test series against England at home as he finds 'Viratball' as a solution to counter 'Bazball.'
India and England are set to face off in a five-match Test series, beginning on January 25 with the first Test scheduled to be played In Hyderabad.
The two sides will be locking horns for the first time in Test cricket since their 2-2 draw in the five-match Test series in 2021/22.
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Speaking ahead of the series, Gavaskar said that while England are set to pose a 'Bazball' challenge in front of the Indian team, the hosts will be ready with their 'Virat ball to counter it.
In 28 Test matches, Kohli has scored 1991 runs at an average of 42.36 against England.
“Yeah, conversion means having more hundreds than fifties. With Kohli, he has a similar amount of hundreds and fifties, which means he has a good conversion rate. The way he's been batting, his movement looks good. With the form that he's in, we have Viratball to counter Bazball,” said Gavaskar on Star Sports.
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Kohli was named in India's 16-member squad for the first two Test against England as the batter stands on the verge of reaching another remarkable feat.
Kohli is just 152 runs short of becoming only the fourth Indian batter to amass over 9000 runs in Test cricket, following in the footsteps of Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar, and Rahul Dravid.
Gavaskar went on to say that it’ll be interesting to see how England’s aggressive approach works against India’s spinners on challenging turning conditions.
India is currently the second-ranked Test side in the world while England are placed third spot in the latest ICC Test rankings.
“England have adopted a new approach in Test cricket in the last 1-2 years. It's an aggressive approach where batters look to attack. They just want to play attacking cricket no matter the situation. It'll be interesting to see if this approach works against the spinners of India,” Gavaskar added.
Kohli (5) will be eying Gavaskar and Tendulkar’s record for the most Test centuries against England.
India squad for first two Tests vs England
Rohit Sharma (C), Shubman Gill, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), KS Bharat (wk), Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Avesh Khan.