‘He is quite a special batsman’: Ashwin surprised why people don’t recognise Sundar’s batting talent
During the post-match press conference, Ashwin said that it’s surprising to see people don’t recognize Sundar’s batting talent.
Team India on Saturday cruised into the final of the inaugural edition of the ICC World Test Championship (WTC) following an emphatic 3-1 series win over England. Washington Sundar played a vital role with the bat in the first innings as the hosts took a 160-run lead and thumped England by an innings and 25 runs.
It was the second time in this series when Sundar was denied his maiden Test hundred. On the third day of the final Test, the tailenders fell in quick successions and the all-rounder was left stranded unbeaten on 96. Earlier in the first Test in Chennai, he remained unbeaten on 85 while the hosts were bowled out for 337 in the first innings.
Meanwhile, Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin hailed Sundar’s performance and called him ‘a special batsman’. During the post-match press conference, Ashwin mentioned that it’s surprising to see people don’t recognise Sundar’s batting talent.
“It is quite surprising because Washington bowled in some of the IPL franchises and he shot with them because of his bowling in the powerplay. It’s quite surprising that people don’t recognise that he grew up as a batsman all his life who could bowl,” said Ashwin.
“I am not surprised at all because I have batted with him. He works hard on his batting and we have discussions around how he should look to bowl more often. He loves his batting and he is quite a special batsman, I am not surprised at all,” he added.
Answering whether the win in the fourth Test shut the pitch critics up, Ashwin replied, “This series win is a testament to the fact that this is a very good Indian cricket team, that is all I would like to say. The criticism around the pitch, all that, the other day, Sunny sir was saying something that makes complete sense. Only because you are giving attention to people who are making a mockery of cricket, I think we are encouraging them to do more and more stuff.”
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“I would like to see one day when there is a lot of grass on the pitch somewhere else in the world, our Indian commentators talking about it and then putting an Instagram post, I would like to see that and how the global media reacts to that, then we will know, who is at fault,” he added.
(With Agency Inputs)