India’s star offie R Ashwin completes 100 wickets against Australia at Kotla; joins legendary leggie Anil Kumble
India’s R Ashwin celebrates the wicket of Australia’s Alex Carey on Day One of the second Test in New Delhi yesterday. PIC/Getty Images
India’s Ravichandran Ashwin continued to taste success against Australia as he grabbed his 100th wicket in Tests in the second game of the four-match series for the Border-Gavaskar Trophy at the Arun Jaitley Stadium here on Friday.
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Ashwin, who hastened Australia’s doom in the second innings of the series opener at Nagpur with a five-wicket second innings haul that powered the hosts to a comprehensive innings victory, sent back right handers Marnus Labuschagne and Steve Smith in the space of three balls in the same over before lunch on Day 1 of the contest. He added the scalp of the left-handed wicketkeeper-batter Alex Carey in the second period of play to reach the coveted mark of 100 Test wickets against one of India’s fiercest opponents on the cricket field.
All three batters were dismissed with different types of deliveries by the 36-year-old crafty and lanky off spinner, who had taken eight wickets in the first Test. He first packed off Labuschane for 18 to break the 40-run second-wicket partnership, also featuring left-handed opener Usman Khawaja, with a ball that spun in and trapped the batsman in front. In the same over Ashwin deceived Smith, the former captain who has been a thorn in India’s flesh for long and scored three tons in their last series in this country, with a ball that angled away, to take the bat’s edge for wicketkeeper Srikar Bharat to pouch.
Carey, the 100th victim
Post-lunch Ashwin bowled a quicker one that hit the deck, spun and bounced to take the edge of Carey’s bat for waiting slip fielder Virat Kohli to grab the chance and help the bowler join predecessor Anil Kumble—the country’s highest wicket-taker in Tests—in the elite two-member 100-victims’ club against the Aussies.
Ashwin’s break-up against Australia after his 100th wicket stood at 61 wickets from 10 matches at home and 39 from the same number of matches in Australia. Carey’s scalp also took the seasoned Indian bowler’s overall tally to 460 in his 90th game.
Also Read: Ravichandran Ashwin wreaks havoc, India thump Australia by an innings and 132 runs in Nagpur
Shami sizzles with four
India pacer Mohammed Shami, who emerged the highest wicket-taker for the hosts with a haul of four victims for 60, said at the post-day presser that the pitches at Nagpur and here were not dissimilar. “The track here is not too different from Nagpur,” he said, adding that even pace bowlers can extract something out of it by sticking to line and length and through reversing the old ball.
Khawaja, who top-scored for Australia with his knock of 81 after a stay of nearly 200 minutes, said at the day-ending media conference that there were not many footmarks for the right-handed batsmen to be troubled by spinners.
India have a plethora of right handers while Australia’s batting order has a lot of left handers. “The pitch also sported some up and down bounce, similar to Nagpur,” Carey added.
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