Zac Crawley says England batsmen must continue to attack despite defeat to India

He said the scoreline of the 4-1 series could have been very different had England taken their chances in Ranchi. Two days into the fourth Test, India slumped to 177 for 7 in reply to 353 and faced a 100-plus first innings deficit, allowing only Dhruv Jurel’s hard-fought 90 to turn the tide and give his team’s spinners a chance. Pressure on England again.

“We have never lost faith and have the same attitude, you can tell from some of our papers!” He joked about some of the strange expressions of optimism that came out of the England camp during the tour, Crawley said.

“We had the same attitude throughout and I don’t think it was arrogance. We honestly believed in ourselves and thought we could win the series. We were in all the games. We were definitely not in the games when I was in India. Last time, so we gave ourselves a good chance and we did enough to make them fair.” It was not clinical.

“We had to win in Ranchi to make it 2-2 and then you never know how the last one will go, but it’s always difficult to get the momentum back. In five days, their skills always come out, and they’ve had a great trip, but we’ve given it a good crack and there’s a lot to learn.

“Hopefully I can go on from here but I feel like I’m in a better place now than I was at the beginning of last year,” Crawley said. “Every time I try to maintain (my form), I think you start to get worse, so I always want to improve.

“Against spin, I was trying to come forward to suppress the ball and it worked for me. My head is more forward in my setup than ever before. But mainly it’s my attitude. I’m trying. It’s part of the game to accept failure more often and accept it, so I’m trying to stick with it.

Crawley’s confidence against India’s seamers, particularly in drive, continued a theme that began with his memorable first-ball four against Pat Cummins in the Ashes. And, in keeping with his role as the first batter in the attacking line-up, he admitted that going toe-to-toe with the leaders of the opposition attack is part of his game plan.

“I was definitely aware of it in the summer against the Aussies,” he said. “I thought, ‘There’s a couple of good balls here, I’ve got to put pressure on them early’, so it was a more conscious effort.

“I think a bit more pace on the ball always suits my game a bit more,” he added. “I think less when he’s bowling fast. You have to calm the brain and calm the mind and react. That’s always suited me, more than the Tim Murtaghs of the world before it falls before you play seven different shots. I’ve never been my strength, but I’ll try and get better.”

Crawley revealed that he underwent laser surgery at the age of 18 to correct farsightedness that required the use of contact lenses, as one of his practice tricks as a child was to crank up the bowling machine at full speed and play. The ball is halfway down the pitch. “It’s only half-volleys but obviously 90mph is very slow by the time you come back,” he said.

Even so, the challenge facing Bumrah is that his high pace, wide range of skills and eccentric action cannot easily be replicated in training.

“I love facing the best bowlers in the world. Him, Cummins, a few others, but he’s probably the best bowler I’ve faced,” Crawley said. “He always bowls fast and then lets it go, so it feels even faster. Then it’s just a weird action, so sometimes it’s hard to pick up and he’s got amazing skill. He swings it slowly both ways. -Ball yorker, so, he’s a great bowler. , but I loved it.

“Every time I look so far ahead like that, how do you get straight out,” Crawley said. “Actually, on a couple of those occasions I was thinking ‘I’ve got to score big’ and I wasn’t in the process. That’s why – quite simply – I got out.

“At Old Trafford in the summer, I was trying to bat and at the time I was batting, I wasn’t thinking about scoring a hundred. I was very present and it’s very difficult to get into that mindset. Whenever I got into that mindset, I managed to score decent runs and if I got ahead of myself, I wouldn’t have.”

England won’t play another Test series until the arrival of the West Indies in July and so the players have plenty of time to absorb the lessons of the India series.

“It needs some refinement,” Crawley said. “We always talk about absorbing pressure and putting pressure back on. We’ve bounced back really well the last two years and we’ve talked about picking those moments to absorb at the right time. We can. Definitely refine it.

“Can’t say we get too negative. We still try to play the way we are and try to score quickly, but pick the moments when they’re up. We have to make sure we stay positive. And don’t let a tough result get in the way of what we’ve done really well in the last couple of years.

“(India) have won 17 home series on spin, so to turn that around we had to be very special and we don’t get too down on ourselves. We still stick to what we know but just stay a little bit better.”