Michael Atherton feels that England has picked an ‘amazing’ playing XI for the first Test against India in Hyderabad, which will begin on January 25.
While India decided to hold the cards close to their chest, the visitors announced the team on Wednesday and the composition for the side was interesting.
England went with three spinners in their lineup as they gave Tom Hartley his international debut. Ben Stokes would hint that Joe Root could be used as an opening bowler to tackle Yashasvi Jaiswal, a move Atherton does agree to. The former England skipper, while talking to Sky Sports, said that it would be wrong to discount the England star as a bowler, given his exploits during the last tour.
Atherton feels Root can think like a batter while he is bowling and could get some help from the pitch.
“This is an amazing team. Is there gonna be a lot on those spinners? There are four of them. Effectively, with Joe Root, of course. Who I never think you should discount and go back to Ahmedabad in 21. He got five for eight or something in six overs?”
“So when it spins, you know, he fires it into the pitch and he thinks like a batter. So never underestimate or discount Joe Root,” said Atherton.
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Atherton feels there will be a lot of pressure on the spinners given their inexperience and Jack Leach coming back from a stress fracture.
There’s a lot of those spinners. Hartley. They think, you know, he’s tall and he’s fast. They think he’s a kind of Axar Patel equivalent. We shall see.
“You know, he’s very inexperienced in first class terms, never mind international terms. And then Rehan Ahmed, who just had that start with one Test in Karachi a year ago and then Leach, as I mentioned, who hasn’t really bowled. Saw Jack yesterday. He’s looking very trim. Graeme Swann on our podcast, said that he’d worked with him recently in Abu Dhabi, and he he’s very, very fit.”
“But as you know, there’s a difference between physical fitness and bowling fitness. But he hasn’t bowled in a match competitively since suffering that stress fracture. Back in, what was that in early June?” said Atherton.
Current England team ignoring the history of the past ones: Atherton
Atherton felt that the current side is ignoring the history of the former England sides and sticking to their guns on what they think would work in each set of playing conditions.
Is this the right team? You know, the proof will be in what comes out of it. What this lot are very good at, I think is looking at the conditions and kind of ignoring history and the history of England teams and saying, ‘this is what we need to do here whether that’s scoring at six and over in Pakistan to give us enough time to win the games there or whether just picking a very spin dominant team. This is what we think can he help us win in the conditions here. So, they’re not afraid of taking a risk