IND vs BAN: Ravichandran Ashwin opines that having fewer Test centres does help players

Hyderabad: India’s premier off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin opined that while it helps players to have fewer Test centres he isn’t the one to comment on whether India should go the Australia or the England way of playing Test matches only at select venues or traditional Test centres.

Many cricketers, including Virat Kohli, have proposed in the past that Test cricket should be played only in major centres and Ashwin concurred with the idea.

Speaking to the media at the post match press conference at the end of the second Test match between India and Bangladesh at the Green Park Stadium in Kanpur, Ashwin said: Does it help a player if you have just a few Test centres? Most certainly it does. Because when we go to Australia, they play India only at five Test centres. They don’t play us in Canberra. They don’t play us at any of the other venues where they won’t be very familiar with the conditions. So do England. They have select Test centres and that’s where they play. Some of those are only white-ball centres. Can we do it here in India? That’s above my pay grade. I cannot comment on that.”

Ashwin opined that the advantage of playing at select venues is that players would be in the know of the conditions and plan their game plan and strategy accordingly.

The 38-year-old off-spinner heaped praise on Yashaswi Jaiswal and Shubhman Gill and termed them that they were the future pillars of Indian cricket. “I would say both of them are in the native days or the formative years of playing Test Cricket but I do see that there will be the future pillars and overseas shores that they’re going to encounter shortly will also enhance and enrich their experience going forward in their wonderful Test journey. They both are special, we all know that,” he said.

The Tamil Nadu-based cricketer added that India’s approach of scoring quick runs in their first innings was a part of their game plan and credited captain Rohit Sharma for sticking to their plans. “We know how Yashaswi (Jaiswal) is going to play but Rohit (Sharma) walked out and just tonked the first ball for six. So when you walk the talk, obviously the dressing room doesn’t have any other choice but to follow that same pattern and we scored 50 runs out of 3 overs,” he exclaimed.