IND vs ENG: Hats off to Pant, but we are not scared of what we need to chase – England assistant coach

Rishabh Pant’s brilliant performance that added 146 runs on board has not shaken England’s mindset according to assistant coach Paul Collingwood. He said that the home team is not “scared” and will fight back in the rescheduled fifth Test.

But Collingwood said England were not scared by the remarkable bounce back by Team India as they were used to chasing big totals in the fourth innings in recent times.

“I don’t feel our backs were against the wall for too long, but hats off to the way Pant played. When you’re up against world-class players, they can do world-class things,” Collingwood said.

“We’re not scared of what we need to chase in the fourth innings. The way we played in the three games against New Zealand showed we’re not overawed by what the opposition are going to get in the first innings,” he added.

In their last Test series against New Zealand, England chased down fourth-innings totals in excess of 250 thrice and registered their 3-0 series win.

Team England is seen embracing an aggressive approach under captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum.

“We’re not playing conventional Test cricket. We’re trying to be as attacking as possible and looking to take wickets with the field placings,” said Collingwood, who played 68 Tests for England.

“We’re not always trying to stem the flow and keep the run rate down. We want to be on the more aggressive side of the line. We can be happy with this day’s work and getting them for anything under 360-370 would be a good result for us.”

Squads –

England Playing XI: Alex Lees, Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Sam Billings, Matty Potts, Stuart Broad, Jack Leach, James Anderson

India Playing XI: Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Hanuma Vihari, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Mohammed Shami, Mohammed Siraj, Jasprit Bumrah

(Inputs by PTI)