Confused: Agarkar, Johnson, Shastri can’t believe Rohit’s Ashwin tactic | Cricket

Ashwin, India’s tallest batsman in active cricket, opened the bowling with spin partner Ravindra Jadeja on Wednesday but couldn’t quite find the right areas to produce the desired results on a pitch that had plenty of turn for the setters. But is that enough to keep your top cycler and cricketer, who has just become the number one bowler in Tests, displacing James Anderson, out of the attack for so long? After all, the morning session is supposed to offer spinners maximum buy-in.

Ashwin proved his worth already in the second innings of the day. He made the breakthrough by dismissing the stubborn Peter Handscomb, who had been brilliant with his confident defensive technique. The pitch didn’t offer the same steep turn as Day 1, which meant the spinners had to bring their guile into play, and who better than Ashwin? He gave the ball air, beat Handscomb in the air and with the drift got the right amount of turn to find the inside edge of his bat and Shreyas Iyer, forward at short leg took a sharp catch.

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Ashwin’s late inclusion in the attack was criticized by former Indian cricketers Ajit Agarkar, Ravi Shastri and former Australian pacer Mitchell Johnson. Agarkar said he was confused by the delay.

“Don’t think India got their tactics right. No Ashwin in the first hour? He’s your best bowler and has bowled only 16 overs so far. I know Axar Patel is playing as a specialist spinner but I have to go for Ashwin. It’s confusing,” Agarkar said in his comments.

“What he does to right-handers around the wicket can really cause confusion. One might spin and one might not. We’ve already seen Smith in this series, the one who ran past his bat,” admitted Johnson. .

“Right now it looks like the pitch has lost a bit of bite, but there’s definitely a lot of it,” Agarkar continued.

“He has been warming up since morning,” Shastri said.

Ashwin got a couple of extra wickets, Alex Carey and Nathan Lyon, as India staged yet another turnaround to stay well and truly in the contest. After Ashwin broke the partnership of Handscomb and Green, India claimed five wickets for just 11 runs as Australia won by 197. The visitors have a comfortable lead of 88 but India made sure they stayed in the game.