Former England skipper Nasser Hussain has slammed the Joe Root-led side for their selection of the playing eleven in the ongoing fourth Test against India at the Narendra Modi stadium in Motera.
Significantly, the Indian skipper once again wreaked havoc as England was bundled out for a paltry 205 in their first innings.
The visiting side had dropped pacers Jofra Archer and Stuart Broad from the playing eleven and replaced them with Ollie Pope and Dom Bess.
“Five times they have failed to make 200 in this series and now they’ve only just scraped past that modest total thanks to a couple of reverse sweeps from Jimmy Anderson. It just shows where they are with their batting in these conditions. It was almost as if England had picked a side for the last Test. They left out two of their seamers because they thought the ball would spin from day one again but as it turned out it did a bit for Mohammed Siraj and Ishant Sharma on the first morning,” Nasser Hussain wrote in his column on Daily Mail.
“England can count themselves very lucky they did win that toss because bowling would have been hard work for them with the attack they chose. Yes, you can see the need for an extra batsman, in this case Dan Lawrence, on a poor pitch, but in this game England needed three seamers and the extra spinner. They have not read the conditions well and have not played particularly well,” Hussain further added.
“Virat Kohli’s captaincy is always better when India are ahead in the game so yesterday suited him perfectly. When he has two spinners and things are going well he is at his best but when his side are behind he gets ruffled and starts to follow the ball with his field placings. So England haven’t really tested him since that first Test,” Hussain concluded.