Ashwin Defends Batsmen After Edgbaston Lose

When Day 4 play resumed of the Edgbaston Test, India were needed 84 runs to win with five wickets in hand. The conditions wasn't easy for the batsmen as it were offering a lot to the bowlers. However, Irrespective of the conditions India's camp was hopeful to win this Test as world's best batsman, Virat Kohli was still at the crease on 43* with Dinesh Karthik at the other end on 18*.

As the game resume, only on the 4th ball of the day, Karthik got out off James Anderson to wicket-keeper Jonny Bairstow. He could add only two more runs to his account. Hardik Pandya came to the crease with positive intent and played a few shots with right frame of mind. On the other hand, Kohli reached past his fifty with a boundary.



The biggest turning point came in the 46th over of the innings whene Ben Stokes dismissed Virat Kohli soon after reaching the half-century. As Kohli was going back, India's hopes were also seems to be gone. Two balls later Kohli's dismissal, Mohammed Shami also got out in the same over. From now, the win was looking far away and in 54th over, India bowled out on 162 to handed England a 31-run win. If India lose this match it is because of the poor shot selection from the their top order that increased the pressure on Virat Kohli. He stood alone in both the innings and aggregated 200 runs (149 & 51) in this match for his side but his effort went in vain.

on the other hand, if India could come so close to win because of their bowlers who bowled out England in both the innings. If Ravichandran Ashwin was a star in the first innings (4 wickets), Ishant Sharma stood out in the second innings with a 5-fer. But it were the batsmen who let slipped the game from their hand.

However, Ashwin went on to defend batsmen after their poor show with bat. He was talking to media in post-match press conference. He said that despite the lose, they competed really well.



"I think this is a game where we would have liked to finish on the winning side. No doubt about it but there are a lot of things we can feel proud of at the end of this game, it's a long Test series so to feel defeated or pained so early on in the series is unfair and at the moment it is all about the feelings that I am bringing out, and I don't feel that bad about it as of now because I thought we competed really well and made two comebacks and probably didn't close out the game when the initiative was on our side. That's something that can happen when you are traveling so we are upbeat about it.

"Like Virat keeps mentioning, when you make runs and pick up wickets, you want to make sure that it is a killer blow and you want to end up on the winning side. It gives you more pleasure out of the game and when it doesn't happen you feel a little deflated about it. But as I told you before, this game was like a see-saw battle and there was enough in there for the quicks and it was doing quite a bit. So they were always in the game and you do expect batsmen to get a ball that has their name on it. So with that sort of a game hedging on the balance, I thought we competed really well through the game. There are a lot of things to be upbeat about so not completely feeling deflated and in this space I feel like we did well and there is something we can learn going ahead in this series," Ashwin said.

On his personal perspective, Ashwin himself has plenty of reasons to be proud of. He turned in a superlative performance with the ball, ending with seven wickets in the match.



"For me, it's all about this mental space I find myself in. I don't dwell much into the way I have bowled, it is in the past as of now. It is important to try and learn from this game and take it to the next game. These are not conditions that are extremely suitable or tailor made for a spinner so I would like to take confidence out of this game and try and move ahead and build on this." he added.

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