Drew Inspiration From Du Plessis'S Adelaide Rearguard: Ravichandran Ashwin
India off-spinner R Ashwin, who along with batsman Hanuma Vihari was involved in a remarkable rearguard action that helped India draw the third Test, said he drew inspiration from a similar act of def
"When Nathan Lyon was bowling, the first 3-4 balls I faced, my back [pain] was shooting through my lower back to the neck. So, I went and told him [Vihari] that I shouldn't have played that shot over the top. It completely tweaked it out," he said.
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"If I gave it a break and didn't play him for an over, my back was getting stiff again. So I told him [Vihari] that I might as well stay here and play him because if I don't play, it stiffens up because I have the chest-guard on. In the middle of a Pat Cummins spell, I found myself in the eye of a storm. There was a bit of luck for us. But I think we got through it pretty well," he added.
Ashwin pointed out the good communication he had with Vihari.
"From our side, the communication was very, very good. Not too sure if the runs were important at that time. It was about batting time. So the communication between us was whenever we got comfortable for a certain bowler in a certain spell, then we wanted to hang on to that side and especially with that hamstring injury and my back also. We didn't want to lose our concentration or playing a shot or two here. We really hung in tight. Especially towards the last four-five overs, we knew we were close. It started to slip up a little bit so we wanted to rotate the strike and play each other's end. Vihari's effort was outstanding with the way he was able to grind," he said.
The 34-year-old off-spinner gave credit to Rishabh Pant for counter-attacking the Aussie bowlers.
"Today morning, the way Rishabh played, it made everyone hopeful of something fantastic that could have been achieved but nevertheless, Rishabh really laid the foundation to be able to see through the last three-three-and-a-half hours," he added.
