Veteran India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has revealed how Ben Stokes going into a shell allowed him to get the better of the England captain during the recently-concluded Test series. Ashwin picked up his 36th five-wicket haul in the final and final Test in Dharamsala, which India won by an innings and 64 runs. One of the wickets in his spell was that of Stokes just before the stroke of Lunch on Day 3. Aswhin bowled an arm ball to Stokes and the cherry went through the gap between bat and pad to rattle the stumps.
Ashwin said that Stokes gets too worried about getting LBW and that’s exactly how he wanted to dismiss him.
“I just felt like when Stokes gets into the very defensive shells, he allows you to come a littler fuller and wider on occasions because he’s worried so much about the LBW. He gets into the zones of being literally extra tight and he could just lunge forward to every single ball on those occasions,” Ashwin told the Indian Express.
“The ball found enough bounce and deviation to just get between bat and pad of that top half. My intention was to get him out LBW, but the bounce enabled me to get through the transit,” he explained.
Speaking on England’s Bazball approach backfiring, Ashwin felt that the visitors failed to fight the right balance in their brand of cricket.
“What England did on this tour cannot be negated or cannot be spoken of on a lesser note. Whenever you do something new and when it’s likely to be revolutionary or entertaining, you will find areas you can always find a balance to. I thought they played good cricket but we played some better cricket at the right moments,” he added.
Meanwhile, a nine-wicket haul in his 100th Test match helped Ashwin re-claim the top spot in the bowlers’ list of the latest ICC rankings earlier this week.
The big haul helped Ashwin move past teammate Jasprit Bumrah into the premier position that he previously held earlier this year, the ICC said in a statement.
