\u201cEngland should beat India if they temper Bazball and use some common sense. At times, their cricket has been thrilling and super enjoyable, but also reckless batting has lost them Test matches,\u201d Boycott wrote in The Telegraph.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir only thought should be winning because it is no use telling us how good you are when the last three World Test Championship finals have been played in our country, but England have not qualified for any of them. They should be embarrassed. Their aim should be to make the next WTC final,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n
Winning is more important than entertaining<\/p>\n
- \n
![\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/image-1750097079894.png\"\/)
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<\/a> Scientist suggests Egyptian pyramids were ‘ancient ports’, built near a Nile branch that disappeared <\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\nConsidering how McCullum and Stokes have always advocated reviving this dying format (Test cricket) by making it entertaining for the fans, by going gaga over the over-attacking form of cricket, which Boycott calls \u2018reckless\u2019, he has urged the English Team to set their priorities and try and win and not just concentrate at entertaining fans.<\/p>\n
He said that winning is paramount in this game, and even considering what all is at stake, and if fans are being entertained and Test cricket also seems to revive by that, it\u2019s a bonus and shouldn\u2019t be the other way around.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe new cycle starts now, and somebody needs to get through to the England players that being a winner is better than being known as an entertainer. If you can win and entertain, that is a bonus. At the moment, England are like a one-trick pony. It\u2019s Bazball or Bazball, and that is the way we play; take it or leave it. They don\u2019t want to change or learn from their losses,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, England announced their playing XI for the series opener against India, retaining Ollie Pope at three and benching Jacob Bethell. Seam-bowling all-rounders Chris Woakes and Brydon Carse are part of the pace attack.<\/p>\n
England XI for Leeds Test –<\/strong> Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (captain), Jamie Smith (wk), Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse, Josh Tongue and Shoaib Bashir<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England has played some fantastic Test cricket since head coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes took charge,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[79824,43331,1406,77575,79823,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-196605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-bazball","9":"tag-ben-stokes","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-eng-vs-ind-2025","12":"tag-geoffrey-boycott","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114708960445398991","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}