Veteran India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin opened up on his on-field contest with Ben Stokes as he got the better of England Test skipper on multiple occasions during the recently held series.
Ashwin has dismissed Stokes as many as 13 times in the longest format of the game. The off-spinner picked up a five-wicket haul in his 100th Test appearance against England at Dharamsala, where he also cleaned up Stokes in the second innings.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Ashwin asserted that Stokes looked extra cautious about getting LBW against him in red-ball cricket.
“I just felt like when Stokes gets into these very defensive shells, he allows you to come a little fuller and wider on occasions because he’s worried so much about the LBW. His bat is almost, pointing down to the ground that he gets into the zones of literally being extra tight and he could just lunge forward to every single ball on those occasions,” Ashwin said.
The veteran offie then narrated how he got rid of Stokes in the second innings of the opening Test at Hyderabad.
“In Hyderabad he wanted to play a lot of the back-foot. It was the slowest surface that I’ve seen in all these years of playing cricket. So when the ball turns, it just beats your bat and doesn’t hit the stump. So Stokes was hanging back. That’s the same load he found himself in Ranchi,” he explained.
Reflecting on the Dharamsala Test dismissal, Ashwin revealed that his plan was to trap Stokes in front of the wicket but the bounce helped to breach the gap between bat and pads to hit the stumps.
“Over here, I felt his front foot was moving farther than usual — because he wanted to hit and at the same time, get to lunch. So I just wanted to keep the line a little outside offs-stump to see if you would lunge. And my intention was to get him out LBW. If you look at the replay also you’ll find that the bat is close to the pad. Only the upper half was a little open. And the ball found enough bounce and deviation to just get between bat and bad at that top half. My intention was to get him out LBW, but the bounce enabled me to get through the transit,” he remarked.
