BIRMINGHAM: Premier spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on Saturday came to the defence of the struggling Indian batting unit, saying batsmen from both teams found it tough to score on a challenging surface at the Edgbaston.
Despite the 31-run loss in the first Test, Ashwin said the visitors are upbeat about their performance and have taken a lot of positives ahead in the five-Test series
Needing 84 runs at the start of day four, India folded up in their second innings at 162 runs with Virat Kohli’s 51 runs going in vain.
The Indian skipper found no support from the other batsmen but Ashwin said that both batting line-ups struggled in the game. “It was quite a tough pitch to bat on. I don’t think batsmen from both sides were able to make runs with a lot of freedom barring the partnership between Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow in the first innings, and then Virat Kohli from our side. It has been quite a struggle that way so I think we need to give batsmen some space,” he said.
“This was a game where we would have liked to finish on the winning side. No doubt about it. But there are a lot of things we can feel proud of at the end of this game. It’s a long test series so to feel defeated or pained so early on in the series is unfair.”
The second-best score to Kohli’s 149 runs in the first innings was 26 by Shikhar Dhawan. Similarly in the second innings, Hardik Pandya scored 31 runs. (PTI)
