Mumbai : India’s off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin lamented the lack of bounce on the Wankhede track as the West Indies piled up a huge 575 for nine in the first innings on the second day of the third Test here Wednesday.
Ashwin, who has now 17 wickets from his debut Test series, felt cheated with the track that didn’t offer any bounce to the spinners.
“You can’t really expect the wicket to turn on the first day, but, yes, bounce is something that I will always be looking for, which was not happening in the last two games. This game, I definitely expected the bounce and I felt cheated in that regard,” said Ashwin, who has picked up four wickets in the innings so far.
Ashwin was surprised with the flat pitch.
“It’s the eighth game I am playing at the Wankhede, and it’s the first time I’m seeing a wicket like this in Mumbai. I am very surprised. It’s similar to the practice wicket we found to the left of it. I was praying it should not be, but it is behaving the same way.”
Ashwin said, “I don’t quite know what to extract from this wicket, as there’s nothing to extract at the moment, probably (will be something to extract) on the final day.”
“Yesterday I bowled a lot of overs. 26 on a first-day wicket is a lot for a spinner. With just four bowlers in the team, you had to be rotated. In the first session, I did not bowl many, in the second session, I was given a job to restrict the left-handers by bowling on the pads and try to prise them out, it did not happen,” he said.
Ashwin said that quick wickets from debutant seamer Varun Aaron helped him attack from the other end in the final session.
“Today it was more a catch up game. We had to restrict them at one point of time and suddenly Varun bowled really well and got us those two wickets in the middle, and there was the chance to go at the batsmen again. That’s what I did,” he said.
IANS
