File photo of R Ashiwn (far right), Virat Kohli (centre) and Shubman Gill.
R Ashwin has been a huge deciding factor in ongoing India vs England Test series. The veteran Test specialist has picked 24 wickets in the last three matches so far with two fifers to his name.
Ashwin also chipped in with the bat when the bowling all-rounder scored a century in front of his home ground in Chennai after taking five-for earlier. His performance, especially with the ball, left Jack Leach impressed who praised Ashwin and fellow spinner Axar Patel for putting the visitors through a lot of trouble.
"They outbowled us on that wicket, Ashwin is a world-class bowler, Axar was very good on that wicket. All the talk has been in the media, in the dressing room, we just talk about getting better," he said in a virtual press conference.
While England batsman are facing a lot of flak for not scoring runs over the last four innings now, the controversial Ahmedabad day/night Test, which folded in just two days, exposed England's age-old achilles heel of facing quality spin. The use of rank turners by the hosts to exploit that weakness saw England batting all over the place. And Leach felt that he would prefer matches go till the last stages of the match in order to have an even battle.
"I think that is right. One thing I will say as a cricket fan if I was watching a Test match, I would want it to go longer than two days, that is my only kind of viewing being a cricket fan... Test match should go on longer than two days, whether that is to the pitch or skill, for me, I am fully concentrating on how can I best do on every wicket I play on," Leach said in a virtual press conference on Monday.
He further admitted that his side got outplayed in the pink ball Test and the focus is on not getting affected by such heavy defeat in the series decider.
"I do not have too much to say about the pitch, we got outplayed in those conditions and for me, I am always looking to learn. That's the great thing about our group, we are all in this mindset and we want to learn from what has been a couple of hard games and put in a good performance so yeah, it was tough, even being a spinner on that wicket comes with tough moments," said Leach.
"Their spinners bowled really well, I do not think we should take anything away from them by saying bad things about the wicket, they played well and we need to learn from that," he added.
