Ravichandran Ashwin picks up a five-wicket haul in County Championship

Ravichandran Ashwin made a good start to his County Championship stint by taking eight wickets in the game after scoring 64 runs across two innings for Worcestershire. Ashwin’s all-round show helped his team register a 189-run win against Gloucestershire and have now moved to 2nd spot in the Division Two Points Table after securing 23 points from the game.

Chasing a target of 401, Gloucestershire were put into a trap by the Indian off-spinner at the New Road Ground in Worcester. On the 3rd day, Ashwin dismissed Christopher Dent for 16 and William Tavare for a duck with a perfect off-spinner’s delivery. In the early overs on the final day, Ashwin trapped George Hankins for a duck but the Gloucestershire’s lower order put on a few partnerships after being reduced to 105/6 in the 46th over.

Ashwin picks up another five-wicket haul

Ashwin returned to dismiss Jack Taylor for 43 and Kieran Noema-Barnett for 22 to ensure the visitors’ inning didn’t last long. He finished with figures of 34-8-68-5 in the 2nd innings and match figures of 63-9-162-8. Ashwin picked up three wickets in the first innings and scored 36 and 28 runs respectively. This was Ashwin’s 38th 5-wicket haul in first-class cricket and only the 3rd outside Asian Continent. The previous two 5-fors he picked outside Asia were during India’s series in West Indies last year. After this game, Ashwin has taken 49 wickets at an average of 39.06 and an S/R of 74.84 playing outside Asia.

Pujara vs Ashwin next week

Another Indian Test star, Cheteshwar Pujara also featured during the same County round for the Nottinghamshire against Northamptonshire. He didn’t have the best of games scoring 18 runs and 34 in the two innings respectively. Though he scored only 34 runs in the 2nd innings, Pujara had a good time in the middle batting for over two and half hours. His team won the game by 163 runs to bag 20 points and stay at the top of Division Two. Both Nottinghamshire and Worcestershire will be facing each other in their next game starting on September 5th which could witness a battle between Indian stalwarts Pujara and Ashwin.

Watch Ashwin’s 5-wicket haul

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ bowling from @ashwinravi99!

5/68 on the @BCCI spin wizard’s @WorcsCCC debut ? pic.twitter.com/ggWX7FISx1

— County Championship (@CountyChamp) August 31, 2017