'Hope pitch breaks up more'

More than the Australian frontline batsmen, it is their tail that has bothered the Indian bowlers in the Border-Gavaskar series.

This day, too, the Aussie tailenders put up a strong resistance but off-spinner Ravinchandran Ashwin insisted that the Australian lower-order indeed batted well and should be given credit.

 Ashwin, who took four wickets on the opening day of the fourth Test, said the term “tailender”, no longer exists in modern cricket as bowlers today are boasting of good batting averages.

 “They batted pretty well, we have to give them credit. But we have to stick to our guns and see what happens because if any lower-order batsman can bat well, you have give them the respect they deserve. That’s about it. It can happen. In different scenarios, different teams have batted like this,” Ashwin said.

“Let us not say they are tailenders. Someone like (James) Pattinson has a good average of 30, you can’t call him a tailender. There are no more tailenders in international cricket who come in, slog and get out.”

 Ashwin said they were hoping the Kotla pitch to break more in the coming days. “This is black soil. It’s pretty evident that black soil doesn’t bounce as much as red soil. But it is breaking up, we just hope it breaks up more.”

 The Chennai player felt a spinner needs to be careful when a surface assists him. “You have to be very careful if there is assistance because if there is assistance, you have to be much more on the spot and not really worry too much about doing from your hand. You have to be even more careful, the margin for error is very less if there is quite a bit of assistance from the wicket,” he said.

Ashwin’s carrom-ball to Mitchell Johnson left the batsman flabbergasted. Johnson left a delivery that went on to crash onto the stumps. Ashwin, however, said it was his delivery to Steven Smith that was the best of the day. “I think the delivery to Smith was a much better one than that. It was just an error on the part of Johnson to leave that delivery, that’s about it. The Smith delivery was probably the best one.”