Hyderabad, Aug 24: India have driven themselves to a dominant position by polishing off the Kiwi top-order but spinner Ravichandran Ashwin says getting wickets would be not easy tomorrow, although, they are eyeing wrapping up the New Zealand innings early.
In response to India's first innings total of 438, New Zealand are struggling at 106 for five with Ashwin dismissing three batsmen, including rival skipper Ross Taylor.
“The new ball was a little bit hard and the seam was much more upright, something that helped us extract bounce and enabled us get a few wickets up front. As the ball gets old, it would slow up a little bit and we have to be more patient to get wickets tomorrow. But we have to stick to our plans and would look to wrap up the innings quickly,” Ashwin said after second day's play.
“Wrapping up early would mean we should be eyeing a follow-on. With respect to how the wicket is behaving and the weather being a little cloudy, we should be looking to bowl twice and get the job done,” he added.
Ashwin said the bowlers did a good job today and early dismissal of Brendon McCullum provided them the momentum and was also pleased with the fact the he got a wicket off his very first ball.
“I just wanted to land it (the ball) in proper place and keep it up. The drift was going the other way and the batsman got beaten. I thought we bowled well and stuck to our gameplan. Obviously the wicket of McCullum early helped. But in the end, we bowled well today,” he said.
“If you put 440 on the board you expect yourself to be on a dominant position in the game. It's a good enough score to dominate the game.”
