Rajkot: England's Ben Duckett celebrates his century on the second day of the third test cricket match between India and England, at the Niranjan Shah Stadium, in Rajkot, Friday, Feb. 16, 2024.
Credit: PTI Photo
Rajkot: It sounded like Ben Duckett was joking for a moment, but it became painfully clear in seconds that he wasn’t.
So, in riposte to Duckett’s 153, Jaiswal went on a bender, scoring 104 from 133 balls including nine fours and five sixes before retiring hurt.
When Duckett came in for the press conference and was asked to talk about Jaiswal’s knock, this is what he said, verbatim: “When you see players from the opposition playing like that, it almost feels like we (England) should take some credit that they're playing differently than how other people play Test cricket. We saw it a bit in the summer and it's quite exciting to see other players and other teams are also playing that aggressive style of cricket.”
Right, so, what Duckett is saying - and not as a joke - is that an Indian star, whose career catalyst was the Indian Premier League, has adopted ‘Bazball’ to score his third Test century in seven Tests.
Duckett probably hasn’t heard of the likes of Indian top-order batters such as Farokh Engineer, Krishnamachari Srikkanth or Virender Sehwag, but to take credit, even in small measure, for a young man’s aggression and execution should inspire embarrassment.
At least, Duckett didn’t say India’s approach as a team on the third day of the Test was also borrowed.
“It was one of those days when I feel we have to give credit to India,” he said without really wanting to. "This morning they were very good and they didn’t make it easy to score. It felt like their plans were a lot better than maybe last night and unfortunately, we just kept on losing wickets at the wrong times.”
When asked if England assumed Saturday would go easier with the absence of R Ashwin, Duckett said: “Well, he was here yesterday, and it was alright…”
In fact, the only time the Kent-born left-hander practiced an iota of humility was when he spoke of his own dismissal, and that too came after saying Kuldeep Yadav’s plans weren’t particularly useful on the day.
Duckett threw his bat at a long hop from the left-arm leg-spinner and gifted Shubman Gill a catch at extra cover.
“No, I didn't find it more challenging (today),” he said. “They just had everyone on the boundary. I played a couple of sweeps but when he's bowling with a deep backward point, a cow corner and a deep square with no one around the bat, I felt like I could knock singles until I hit one that was close to being a wide straight to cover. That one didn’t go according to plan, but then again that’s cricket.”