Former India batter Sanjay Manjrekar said that Ravichandran Ashwin’s ability to play the ball late and hit good deliveries for boundaries made things tough for Bangladesh’s bowlers on Day 1 of the first India vs Bangladesh Test in Chennai on Thursday, September 19. Manjrekar also said that Ashwin did not allow the bowlers to settle in, upsetting their bowling rhythm too.

Sent into bat at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, India ended Day 1 on 339-6, with Ashwin unbeaten on 102 and fellow all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja on 86 as well. The duo added an unbroken 195 for the seventh wicket by stumps to help India recover from 144-6 as well.

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Speaking to ESPNcricinfo, Manjrekar said: “The most important thing is Ashwin’s gift as a batter. I see the bowlers being shell shocked because they are bowling so well – good lengths, right areas. Then, Ashwin comes in and they do the same thing and that ball gets punished for four. Not once, but three, four, five times. That puts them off. He’s got such beautiful hands, plays the ball late. One of the very few flag-bearers of this generation, who plays a lot on the back foot and plays the ball late. All those things combined got us to witness a wonderful innings.”

While R Ashwin scored his sixth Test century on Day 1 of the contest against Bangladesh, Jadeja played another decent knock with the
bat. At stumps, he was 14 short of a fifth Test century as well.

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“He’s been amazingly consistent with the bat over the last few years. Not just in India, he got a hundred in England as well. When you see him bat now, it seems like he has actually mastered his own approach to batting. He is happy to grind without even looking like he is grinding. This is a batter who has worked out his approach. He knows his batting well,” Sanjay Manjrekar concluded.