England’s veteran batter Joe Root has opened up on the difference between facing Ravichandran Ashwin and Nathan Lyon, the two of the greatest off-spinners of the current era. Both Ashwin and Lyon have bagged more than 500 Test wickets in their glorious careers.

Root has had the pleasure of facing both of these veteran spinners and has enjoyed his battles against the duo. Meanwhile, Ashwin recently joined Lyon in the 500-wicket club as he scalped his 35th five-wicket haul in Test cricket as he returned with figures of 5-51 against England in the second innings at Ranchi.

Speaking to the Sky Sports Podcast, Joe Root said about Ravichandran Ashwin: “I’d say, Ashwin is making sure that you don’t play the previous ball. He is very good at trying to drag you across the crease and get your head to one side of it and beat both edges quite frequently. Ashwin is probably slightly trying to find ways of getting you out rather than trying to wear you down, over long periods of time.”

On the other hand, Nathan Lyon became the third bowler after Muttiah Muralitharan and Shane Warne to take five wicket hauls in nine host countries when he returned with figures of 6-65 in the second innings against New Zealand at Wellington.

“With Lyon it is all about, I think, especially in the first half of the Test match to get really over the top of the ball, get bounce bowl in between you like the knee roll and hit and try to bring short leg and leg slip into the game as much as he can and then just slowly, get slower with his pace and drift wider into that. There’s that footmarks, um, Mitchell Starc has so kindly done for him for such a long period of time,” Root elaborated.

Meanwhile, Root scored an unbeaten knock of 122 runs to bounce back to form in the first innings at Ranchi against India. Root and Ashwin will be up against each other in the fifth Test at Dharamsala from March 7 onwards.