Thaindian News

Hyderabad, Aug 24 (IANS) Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin feels should New Zealand’s first inngings fold up early, the hosts should enforce the follow-on keeping in view how the pitch is behaving and the cloudy weather.

“If we warp up early we should be probably looking at follow-on. With respect to how the wicket is behaving and the weather beinga bit cloudy, I think we should be looking to bowl twice and get the job done,” said Ashwin, who excelled today with both the bat and the ball.

New Zealand were struggling at 106 for five in their first innings, still needing 133 to avoid the follow-on, after the second day’s play in the first Test at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium, Uppal, here Friday.

Ashwin, who scored a quickfire 37 off 54 balls, also claimed three wickets for 30 runs.

“As the ball is getting older and (wicket) also slowing a bit, we have to be more patient to get wickets tomorrow. We should stick to our guns and try and wrap up this innings quickly,” he added.

Ashwin said the new ball was little bit hard and the seam was much more upright when we spinners started bowling, helping them liitle bit of bounce. He said this enabled them to get a few wickets upfront.

Ashiwn and Pragyan Ojha have taken all the five wickets New Zealand lost in their first inning on the second day of the first test.

“I thought India has bowled well and we stuck to our guns. Obviously they lost the wicket McCullum early and they were under some pressure but at the end of the day we bowled well today,” he said when asked if the wicket was spinning or it was the inability of the Kiwis to play spin.

“Probably yes. I wanted to land in a proper place and start of well. The drift was going the other way. I think he (Guptil) was beaten by that,” he said when asked if he was surprised to get a wicket on the first ball.

The spinner said the team had set a target of 500 for itself.

“Unfortunately we floundered in between. If we had probably put on another partnership lower down the order we would have got 500. Having said that 400 is good enough score. If you have 440 on board you expect to be at least in a dominating position.”