‘Looking forward to competing against him’ - R Ashwin on battle with Nathan Lyon ahead of Border-Gavaskar trophy

Australia spinner Nathan Lyon picked up six wickets in the second innings of the first Test against West Indies to surpass Ravichandran Ashwin in the list of of highest wicket-takers in Tests. With both players scheduled to play more matches in the near future, the position may change but Ashwin, who shares a great relationship with Lyon, is eager to meet him and compete hard to overtake him in the upcoming Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

The 35-year-old off-spinner will be in action when India take on Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and thus will have enough preparation time before the much-awaited India-Australia series. However, two months prior to the series, Ashwin mentioned that he is aware of Lyon’s stats and under every circumstance, he will challenge his opponent.

“Nathan Lyon took a six fer in the 2nd innings and ended with 8 wickets in the match. He went past my tally of Test wickets and came into the top ten bowlers in terms of wickets taken. I was with 442 wickets, he has gone past me and is currently at 446,” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.

“Once my buddy is done with his home series, he will come to India and I am looking forward to that series. Overall, Australia played really well. But in another important news…. While talking about my buddy Nathan Lyon, even my pen flies, I don’t know why. Anyway, he will come here when Australia tour India next year. Looking forward to meeting him and competing against him,” the 36-year-old added.

Not just in international cricket, Ashwin has kept himself informed about Australia’s domestic tournaments as well. Naming a few players, Ashwin revealed that he is hopeful about Australia’s next-gen spinners.

“They are in search of the next line of Australian spinners. In Big Bash, there will be an off-spinner named Ben Manenti. Then they have Tod Murphy. Recently his videos got viral. They also have two left-arm spinners. They also have the leg-spinning sensation Tanveer Sangha,” Ashwin said.

"If you had asked me before 18 months on whom the next spinner should be for Australia, I would have really struggled to answer. But in the last 12-18 months, they have got many spinners coming through the ranks as mentioned by Steve O’Keeffe in one of the articles,” the cricketer added.