They were not scared- Ashwin
Collected
|| CF Correspondent ||
Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin feels that Bangladesh lacked experience against India but added he doesn’t feel the opposition was scared against them at any point in the opening Test at Indore at Thursday.
Indian pacers and spinners put a combined effort to bowl out Bangladesh for 150 runs in 58.3 overs in the first innings of the first Test at Holkar Cricket Stadium in Indore on Thursday.
Mushfiqur Rahim scored highest 43 runs as Bangladesh struggled right from the start after new skipper Mominul Haque won the toss and made a bold decision of batting first on a green pitch.
Mohammad Shami claimed 3-27 while Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav and Ravichandran Ashwin claimed two wickets each, as Bangladesh were folded in little over two sessions.
India reached 86-1 in 26 overs at stumps of the first day’s play, trailing by just 64 runs after Cheteshwar Pujara and Mayank Agarwal made unbeaten 43 and 37 runs respectively.
‘’I don’t think any international team is scared to play against his opposition. If you are talking about number 10s and 11s batsman moving away from the stumps and playing the balls, that happens with a lot of number 10 and 11s,’’ said Ashwin.
‘’I think it was a brave decision by them to bat first after winning the toss. We did not expect that. We though they will ball but they chose to bat which is I guess comfortable from their end. To be honest few of their batsmen batted well in the morning session. It was never easy to bat in a wicket where there were some help for the bowlers. I think Mominul Haque batted really well,’’ he said adding that the difference was created due to their vast difference in experience.
‘’You need to understand the fact that our team are lot more experienced in Test cricket compare to other side. We are almost averaging 40-50 Tests and lot of players in the other side (Bangladesh) are inexperienced,’’ he said.
‘’From my side I think Bangladesh played some good cricket in the morning and eventually all out by persistent bowling from our side. So I will say good cricket is being played. So rather than being harsh on Bangladesh I will look on to the positives that Indian team has achieved in today’s play,’’ he concluded.
