“We are not stupid enough” - England batting coach opens up on whether England would go for a win in 2nd Test vs India

England batting coach Marcus Trescothick has opened up about England's strategy to go for a draw if the situation becomes challenging in the ongoing second Test against India at Edgbaston in Birmingham. 

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At stumps on Day 4, England were at 72/3 in 16 overs with Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, and Joe Root moving back to the hut. On the other hand, Ollie Pope (24*) and Harry Brook (15*) are batting at the crease with England requiring 536 more runs to win.

Notably, Indian Test captain Shubman Gill continued his heroics with yet another daddy century (161) on Day 4 of the Birmingham Test, smacking a total of 430 runs in both innings to fall behind England’s Graham Gooch, who has an aggregate of 456 runs in a Test.

“I think that whenever the situation is challenging, of course it is. I think, if you get to the point where you can draw the game, of course. We're not stupid enough to understand that, you have to just win or lose, there are 3 results possible in every game that you play. But we have done some things in our time that we are different to what we've done it before, so we'll see what happens,” Trescothick said at the post-day press conference. 

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Furthermore, the English batting coach also asserted that they don’t talk about drawing the game in the dressing room as they’re not used to going for a draw under the leadership of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum.

It’s important to note that Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes have an exceptional Test record with 19 wins, eight defeats, and a draw in 28 matches. Interestingly, their only draw came due to heavy rain. 

“I don't think we use that sort of language. It's not the sort of change room that we are, but we're not naive enough to know that it's a very challenging total that you sort of play. Do you just go in your bunker and just sort of dig it out and you know some players may do that. You just don't know really it's individuals that can sort of adapt to the game and understand what's happening, but you know you've got to understand our changing room. Is a different type of culture in terms of to what we've done in the past,” he added.

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