The premier Indian off-spinner, Ravichandran Ashwin expects the Adelaide pitch to slow down considerably going forward in the ongoing first Test between India and Australia. He was the one to take three wickets on Day 2 and put and Australia have managed to stay in the hunt because of Travis Head’s 61. They start Day 3 on 191/7 with Ashwin standing within a chance of adding to the three wickets he got on Friday.
During the post-day press conference, Ashwin said, “Whoever can get momentum from here on has the edge in this Test. I think it is extremely well poised. I think the wicket has slowed down considerably and I don’t expect it to quicken up more either. I think it’s going to slow down more. I thought we really bottled them up, soaked them up and put on pressure from both ends. We don’t isolate it as a fast bowling or spin bowling pack. We identify it as a bowling unit together because one cannot exist without the other.”
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Ashwin said that, although Adelaide generally offers something for the spinners, he didn’t expect the ball to grip the way it did on Friday. He also acknowledged that he was getting drift both ways, in and out, and which led to the batsmen holding their feet inside as well as outside the stump and hence hold them. That’s something that worked in my favor because of the drift, the ball going away and coming back in. It happens in Melbourne too.
This was the fifth time that Shaun Marsh was dismissed by Ashwin. Describing the same, the veteran off-spinner said, “It was a sort of initial set-up that we wanted to do. Today the plan worked and not in the fashion that he dragged it on. But Shaun Marsh is one of the players that has played spin well in that batting order. So we thought it is a different plan for him going into this match. I have not bowled much to the right-handers in this game but when Pat Cummins was playing, one went through the gate. So there is a lot of action happening for the right-handers.”
Ashwin has visited Australia for the third time in his career and he said the experience of 2011, when Michael Clarke hit him out, was a learning curve. He said he did not expect the Australians to come after him very hard, but if they did he will be very happy.
