'Stokes gets into these very defensive shells' - R. Ashwin opens on his battles with England captain

Veteran India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin loves to bowl against left-handers as he has had an upper hand over them throughout his career. One such left-hander whom the Chennai-born has troubled a lot in his career is the England captain Ben Stokes. Notably, Ashwin has dismissed Stokes 13 times in his career and has had his number more often than not.

Recently, Ashwin opened up on his battles with Stokes and revealed that the all-rounder allows him to come fuller and wider when he gets into a defensive shell to avoid getting lbw. The 37-year-old dismissed the England captain twice in the recent series as he cleaned him up on both occasions.

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“I just felt like when Stokes gets into these very defensive shells, he allows you to come a little fuller and wider on occasions because he’s worried so much about the LBW. His bat is almost, pointing down to the ground that he gets into the zones of literally being extra tight and he could just lunge forward to every single ball on those occasions,” Ashwin told Indian Express.

Ashwin further cleaned up Stokes in Dharamsala as well, as he claimed the 36^th five-wicket haul of his career Explaining his dismissal, the spinner said that he was looking to get him out lbw but he managed to breach his defence and dismiss him.

“Over here, I felt his front foot was moving farther than usual — because he wanted to hit and at the same time, get to lunch. So I just wanted to keep the line a little outside offs-stump to see if you would lunge. And my intention was to get him out LBW. If you look at the replay also you’ll find that the bat is close to the pad. Only the upper half was a little open. And the ball found enough bounce and deviation to just get between bat and bad at that top half. My intention was to get him out LBW, but the bounce enabled me to get through the transit,” he added.

Ashwin was the leading wicket-taker of the England series

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Notably, Ashwin was the leading wicket-taker of the series with 26 wickets to his name from ten innings at an average of 24.8 and an economy of 4.12. He also completed his 500 Test scalps during the series and became the second-fastest bowler to achieve the milestone (98 Tests). Meanwhile, Stokes didn’t have a memorable series with the bat scoring just 199 runs from ten innings at an average of 19.9 with just one fifty to his name.