JOIN USWhile he may have played an important role in India’s eight-wicket win in the opening Test, claiming 12 wickets for the match, R Ashwin felt MS Dhoni’s double hundred was more crucial in more ways than one.
“He isn’t sure whether he is going to do it again in his life,” noted the off-spinner when asked about the positive influence it had on the team. “It’s that kind of a innings which you don’t know whether you can replicate it again because he went in and got almost two hundreds in just two sessions which is an extraordinary batting.
I haven’t seen such a knock before. What it does is, you set the tempo as a captain and it boils out in your field settings, bowling changes and everything else. It just took off from there. I don’t think we ever looked back after that knock. It would have been demoralising for any team fielding at that point of time,” he elaborated.
The Tamil Nadu bowler came up with his first 10-wicket haul here against New Zealand last year. That good showing here he said would keep him in good stead. “It’s another occasion now. We are playing a different team. I haven’t had a look at the pitch yet. Obviously, when you go into a ground you get a good feel if you have done well before. It helps to go with a good positive mindset.”
The 27-year-old didn’t read too much into pitch on offer for the second Test. “I just looked at it from far. It seems a different soil and it looks whiter (as compared to Chennai). I seriously do not know too much about preparation of wicket and all that but by the look of it, you can make out what it is going to do. I heard it’s going to be a good wicket in the first couple of days.”
Ashwin also appeared a bit irritated with a few questions. “It’s up to people like you to compare and draw lines and tell where people have done well and who has not done well,” he retorted when asked how and whether he enjoyed competition with fellow spinners in the team. “I don’t even think about it. It’s going to exist and it always used to exist and there is no point in thinking about it. When people are there to do it (comparing spinners), why bother about it?”
The tweaker said the team hadn’t discussed the reversal against England after winning the first Test. “We haven’t spoken about it honestly. It’s just that result and numbers don’t go too much into the head. I think we will have to remain positive in the dressing room saying, ‘this is what happened against England and didn’t happen here.’ If you put your mind into it, you will see that England played well in the second innings in Ahmedabad and took momentum from there. But we had a very clinical performance in first Test this time and that will really help us.”