Kevin Pietersen Shares Rahul Dravid's Mail For Struggling England Openers Zak Crawley, Dom Sibley

With England openers Dominic Sibley and Zak Crawley failing to deliver once again in the ongoing Test series in Sri Lanka, former England captain Kevin Pietersen has advised them to take help from the email he had received from the legendary Rahul Dravid on ‘how to tackle spin bowling’. Kevin Pietersen’s message came after the openers’ failure in the first innings of the ongoing second Test.

For the third innings a row, Sibley and Crawley were sent back by left-arm spinner Lasith Embuldeniya. Crawley scored five while Sibley could not even open his account. And soon after their dismissal, Kevin Pietersen took to Twitter to share two pages where Dravid had discussed at length how Kevin should go against the spinners.

Crawley & Sibley need to go find the email that Dravid sent me about playing spin.
Changed my game!

— Kevin Pietersen? (@KP24) January 23, 2021

Dravid spoke about different ways to handle spin bowling. He highlighted the importance of not committing on the front foot and not worrying about getting beaten every now and then. In his tweet, Kevin Pietersen also urged the ECB to print the two pages and hand it to the struggling openers.

“Hey @englandcricket, print this and give it to Sibley & Crawley. They can call me to discuss it at length if they want,” Kevin Pietersen tweeted.

Hey @englandcricket, print this and give it to Sibley & Crawley.
They can call me to discuss it at length if they want…!
?? pic.twitter.com/qBmArq211s

— Kevin Pietersen? (@KP24) January 23, 2021

Earlier in 2017, Kevin Pietersen had mentioned Dravid in an excerpt from his book ‘KP: The Autobiography’.

“One good practice is to bat against Swann and Monty without pads or with just knee pads (maybe not a day before a game!). When you have no pads it will force you, sometimes painfully, to get the bat forward off the pads and will force you to watch the ball,” read a part of Dravid’s mail to Pietersen.

“Also, the leg will be less keen to push out without any protection. My coach would tell me you should never need pads to play spin!! Watch the ball and trust yourself. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t play spin, I have seen you and you can!” added the mail.

Talking about the ongoing game, England recovered quickly after losing both their openers cheaply. At stumps, they were on 98 for 2 with skipper Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow leading the charge with the bat. Earlier in the day, Sri Lanka were all out for 381. England are leading the series after winning the first Test by seven wickets.

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