BIRMINGHAM: Be angry and challenge Virat Kohli, urged former captain Michael Vaughan to an English side hosting an ambitious India, for long seeking to shed the poor travellers’ tag, in a highly-anticipated Test series.
Besides, the 43-year-old who opened for his country for almost a decade, wants the seasoned Alastair Cook to show consistency and skipper Joe Root to convert his starts into monumental knocks.
Cook has played alongside the player-turned-expert in the beginning of his career. He prefers a five-man bowling attack and last but not the least, Vaughan goaded the pace duo of Stuart Broad and James Anderson to “step up and challenge Virat Kohli’s front foot”. “Joe Root needs to hammer home to his men that they have a point to prove and try to replicate that angry England team that arrived at Headingley and hammered Pakistan in their last Test.
Go back and say to the players: ‘What were you thinking that first day at Headingley,” Vaughan wrote in the ‘Daily Telegraph’. “Sometimes it is not done in team chats. Sometimes you are better off speaking to individuals. Go to each individual and ask: ‘Why did you arrive in Leeds with more intensity’?” England crushed Pakistan by an innings and 55 runs in the Headingley Test in June.
“This England team has to find that attitude without first having to be stirred into a response through criticism after a hammering. Maybe the Adil Rashid furore will help,” said Vaughan, who was one of the key characters involved in the Rashid “furore”.
“England will not win every game, they are not good enough, but their mindset and mentality can be the same every week.” The five-match series starts in Birmingham on Wednesday. Regarding the prolific Root, he said, “He averages over 50 from 16 Tests as captain. I would have snatched your hand off for that average. The only problem for Joe is that he has not scored the hundreds he should have done. “He has found his form in the one-day game and got out of his system the frustration and anger, and trying to bat like someone else rather than trusting his own game. All he needs is to be himself.” He thought the way to go is to wear the Indian bowlers down. (PTI)
