Feels good to end day with ‘bag’ of wickets: Ravichandran Ashwin

Ahmedabad, March 10

Little tweaks in technique after an underwhelming tour of Bangladesh has worked wonders for Ravichandran Ashwin, who will go to bed “feeling a lot better” as his spells against the Australians had “more penetration”.

It does feel good as you end up with a good bag of wickets. I will go to bed tonight a bit early and a bit happier… This is a game of second innings but we have to bat well and probably see some of our top-order batters get a big score. I expect the pitch to be nice and hard and probably break as the game goes on which I hope is not for the next five sessions. Ravichandran Ashwin

“You can go to bed feeling a lot better instead of having just three wickets in your kitty,” Ashwin said after the end of second day’s play in the fourth Test.

“It does feel good as you end up with a good bag of wickets. I will go to bed tonight a bit early and a bit happier,” he added.

Ashwin has taken 24 wickets in the series so far with an innings left to bowl, but his 6/91 in 47.2 overs will certainly go down as one of his best efforts on a flat deck.

Asked what worked for him on the second day, when he got five wickets for 34 runs, Ashwin said: “No one spell is better than the other. And I felt at various stages in this particular series, be it in New Delhi, the numbers probably don’t give you a five or six but the ball is coming out beautifully.”

“…and whatever changes I have put in — loading (getting into his delivery stride), cocking my wrists (wrist position), all those things have proved that my spells have been a lot more penetrative. Probably it was in Bangladesh and I don’t think I was at my best. However smaller changes that I have made has ensured that I have got enough purchase off the pitches, and it’s done more in the air than what it did in Bangladesh,” he added.

The flat deck didn’t make his job easier and he had to try certain variations. “It wasn’t a pitch where a lot was going for me so I had to use the scrambled seam, the drift and whatever was available, I would take it with both hands,” he said.

Ashwin said that the pitch is still pretty good for batting. “This is a game of second innings but we have to bat well and probably see some of our top-order batters get a big score,” he said. “I expect the pitch to be nice and hard and probably break as the game goes on which I hope is not for the next five sessions,” he added.