Ravichandran Ashwin rarely has a smile on his face. He looks dead serious on and off the pitch giving an indication of a man on the mission. Carrom-ball is a new idea that he gave to the art of spin and on Friday after his four-for 40 bowling figures, he suggested a new approach that cricket has adopted these days, he believes ‘there are no tail-enders these days.
“There are no tailenders now. That era is over. There are no tailenders who come out, slog and get out. Someone like James Pattinson has a good average of 30 so he can’t be called that,” Ashwin said at the post-day press conference on Friday after the Australian number nine Peter Siddle made 47 and is in an unbroken stand of 42 with number 10 Pattinson.
“They batted pretty well so we need to give them credit. If a lower-order batsman bats pretty well, you have to give him the credit. At different scenarios, different teams have batted out pretty well so you need to give them credit as well,” the lanky off-spinner added.
The Australians have struggled once again in the series and Steven Smith, though he scored 45, is shocked to see the behavior of the Feroz Shah Kotla pitch which has variable bounce. He termed the pitch as not a first-day strip. “It’s not the Day One wicket I am used to playing on. It has broken up pretty early. It will get tougher and tougher to bat throughout this match,” Smith said.
“It’s not too often we see on the first day of a Test match the ball going like that and hitting a player in his grill (it hit Phillip Hughes). That’s probably shaken him up; it also shaken me up. If we talk about Hughes, he was very good today. He came out with a positive mind-set and found his way over here,” he said.
“231 at the end of day one is not bad day for us. Hopefully, we can add another 50 runs to our score tomorrow. It’s going to be a competitive first-innings score,” he said.
The number five batsman also said that scoring runs on the Kotla pitch which is turning is tough runs “Spin has played a good role on this wicket. It’s pretty tough to score runs a lot of times. Every one of their bowler bowled well today. Their field setting was good. The wicket has already worn out. If we could grind out another 50, it would be good for us,” he said.