Former England cricket team coach David Lloyd believes that Ben Stokes and Co show play on Yashasvi Jaiswal’s ego in order to dismiss the in-form youngster in the third Test match against India in Rajkot starting Thursday. Jaiswal has looked in tremendous form in the first two Test matches with a historic double century in Visakhapatnam to guide his side to victory. Lloyd believes that although there is no obvious weakness when it comes to Jaiswal’s batting, England should target the left-hander with an off-spinner and tempt him to go for a big shot that may end up going to the fielder for a catch.
“Jaiswal is a dasher all right but he doesn’t have an obvious weakness, so I would be thinking slightly outside the box and rather than bowling the left-arm spinner against him with the new ball, I would be tempted to persevere with the off-spinner, placing temptation in the deep. I would like to see England play on Jaiswal’s ego a bit more,” Lloyd wrote in his column for Daily Mail.
“You need to keep your catchers around the bat in subcontinental conditions but you also need one or two fielders hovering in strategic positions where he likes to hit the ball,” he added.
Lloyd also mentioned the trap that Stokes came up with to dismiss Shreyas Iyer during the second Test match. England placed two fielders at deep mid-off and deep midwicket to induce a loft shot from Iyer and the batter ended up gifting his wicket as he was caught in that exact area.
“Dangle him a carrot by posting a deep midwicket and a deep mid-off, but two-thirds rather than all the way back to the boundary. Recall the trap Stokes set for Shreyas Iyer in the second Test, when the England captain ran towards the rope to take a very good overhead catch.” Lloyd explained.
