Former Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin questioned England batters’ reckless approach after their eight-wicket loss in the first Ashes Test against Australia at the Optus Stadium, Perth. England returned with scores of 172 and 164 runs and thus could not come up with a complete performance with the bat.
Despite getting a decent lead of 40 runs in the first innings, the visitors were bundled out for 164 runs in the second essay. Ashwin questioned the English batters’ approach of hitting the big shots despite the boundary riders.
None of the batters could go past the 40-run mark in the second essay for the tourists. But, Travis Head played a blistering knock of 123 runs off just 83 balls to help Australia chase down 205 runs with ease.
Ashwin said on his YouTube Channel, “But how reckless will reckless suffice? I am actually thinking, where will the bandwidth of the word ‘reckless’ remain? If you keep putting everything into that bandwidth, how reckless can even reckless get? Because I am saying that, you know, there are many things. I don’t want to take names of players. Even in the Indian team, there will be many next-generation players who, I mean, the fielders are back on the boundary, yet they take the chance, they hit lofted shots.”
Ashwin recalled former Indian head coach Rahul Dravid’s advice of giving enough rest to the team’s bowlers to set up Test matches.
“As a batting group, how reckless can you be? Because on the first day, you were knocked out for 172, you lost five wickets in the space of 12 or 15 or maybe 20 runs. After that your bowling attack wrestled the initiative back, gave you a 40-run lead. And your first job as a batting unit is to give your bowlers enough rest. And Rahul (Dravid) bhai always says, give your bowlers overnight rest and see how your bowlers respond. Today they came and cleaned up the last wicket. The England bowlers, I am sure, would have wanted to put their feet up, and in no time they are back on the park looking to defend 200, which is paltry,” he added.
The former Indian all-rounder said England lost as they were reckless with the bat.
“In my view, England, minus Pat Cummins minus Hazlewood have been hammered, and truly hammered, after they put on a show and thinking Bazball has come to town. They have been hammered for reckless cricket. So I know Michael Vaughan was saying on commentary that this team knows how to come back. I hope they do, because this will become a very, very, very long tour otherwise.”
The second Ashes Test will be played from December 4 onwards at the Gabba, Brisbane.
