Bowling coach Mhambrey defends move to omit Ashwin

Paras Mhambrey

The talking point on the opening day of the World Test Championship final was the Indian bowling combination and the fact that India preferred to drop off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin despite the presence of many left-handed batters in the Australian line-up.

It was argued by many that India could have gone ahead with their best five bowlers, even if that meant three pacers and two spinners, and included Ashwin unmindful of the apparent conditions.

Experts felt that a world-class bowler like Ashwin could have been more effective against Head. India bowling coach Paras Mhambrey, however, defended their decision and said considering the conditions, India were right to go with an extra pacer.

"See, it's always a very difficult decision to drop a champion bowler like that. But I thought looking at the conditions in the morning, I thought having the additional seamer would definitely be beneficial. And it has worked in the past. If you look at the earlier games that we played, the last Test match, we went in with four seamers, which really went well. The seamers have done well out here for us," Mhambrey said during the end-of-the-day press conference at The Oval on Wednesday.

Also Read: We need to talk about Ashwin

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