England’s “lack of match preparation” in India forward of the gruelling five-Test sequence may very well be a “problem” however the staff can financial institution on its ‘Bazball’ method to upstage Rohit Sharma and his males, feels Alastair Cook, who led the Englishmen to a memorable Test triumph within the nation again in 2012. Having opted for a month-long coaching camp in ‘subcontinent-like situations’ of Abu Dhabi, Ben Stokes and Co. arrived in Hyderabad on Sunday, simply 4 days earlier than the opening Test on Thursday.

“A problem England will have is a lack of match preparation,” Cook, who had top-scored with 562 runs within the 2-1 come-from-behind win over India within the 2012-13 sequence, wrote in his column for ‘The Sunday Times’.

“It is the nature of the modern tour. When we won in India in 2012 we had three warm-up games against good sides — Yuvraj Singh, Ajinkya Rahane and Murali Vijay were in the top four in the India A side we faced and Cheteshwar Pujara played in one of the other games,” he recalled.

“…I can understand why England want to practise in a controlled environment where they know what the nets and facilities are going to be like and there’s nothing too unpredictable.

Cook said at least one warm-up game should have been scheduled.

“It can be good if there was some form of unwritten settlement between nations to placed on respectable apply matches in respectable situations for touring groups….in the intervening time too many sequence are completely dominated by the house facet and I do not assume that is wholesome for Test cricket,” the 39-year-old said.

Since their defeat in 2012, India have not lost at home, remaining undefeated in 14 Test series.

Bazball way forward

Cook, however, was confident in England’s Bazball approach, which advocates an attacking style of play. The team demonstrated it in the successful tour of Pakistan (3-0) last year.

“…there isn’t a doubt what England are going to attempt to do in India and I now assume it’s their greatest probability of success. They will not observe the standard guidelines of batting within the subcontinent. I at all times discovered the important thing time was the primary 30 balls if you find yourself making an attempt to acclimatise,” Cook said.

“When you stroll out to bat, notably as a middle-order participant coming in towards spin, you are surrounded by shut fielders. There is lots of noise and chatter “…if you can find a way to get past that then you find that the subcontinent is one of the nicest places to bat because you don’t get the changing conditions you get in England, where it’s sunny one minute then a bit of rain changes everything.

Cook said the English team has the attack to unsettle the star-studded Indian batting line-up.

“I’ll be very to see how India react. I feel this England facet can put the India bowlers underneath strain right away.

“It might upset their rhythm and how they go about it. They just won’t be used to it as most sides try to hang in there, but that generally doesn’t work against India at home.

“The key can be adapting the aggressive pictures they play primarily based on the pitch they’re confronted with. If it’s turning excessively, the percentages aren’t in your favour if you’re speeding down the wicket and having a large hack.”

Root best player of spin

Identifying Joe Root as a key asset, Cook hailed the former England captain as one of the best-ever players of spin.

“He’s scored lots of runs within the subcontinent lately in Sri Lanka and India, and he has achieved it by being very proactive, however in what gave the impression to be a really risk-free approach. There’s so much the opposite batsmen can study from how he goes about it,” he defined.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)