WTC Final | Bowling Coach Paras Mhambrey Talks About Ashwin's Exclusion; Defends India After An Embarrassing Day 1
Ashwin got excluded from India's XI in WTC Final (Twitter)
Team India had a horror show on Day 1 of the World Test Championship (WTC) Final 2023 as the bowlers fell short against the might of Travis Head and Steve Smith at The Oval. After the first day, Australia find themselves in the driving seat as the score reads 327/3. Rohit Sharma's India were scrutinised for not including Ravichandran Ashwin in the Playing XI. However, the bowling coach Paras Mhambrey has defended the team management's thought behind excluding the 474 Test wickets veteran.
During the course of the day, various cricketing pundits - including Sunil Gavaskar, Ricky Ponting, Sourav Ganguly, Harbhajan Singh, et al. - showed their disappointment after India made a bold call to drop Ashwin, despite Australia having four left-handers in their top-seven.
However, the bowling coach has backed the team management, saying India played their best Playing XI considering the conditions offered at the venue. While talking to media post Day 1, Mhambrey emphasised that dropping a player like Ashwin is always a challenging call.
"(Ravi) Ashwin is a great bowler, and it was difficult to leave him out, but as a team, we always have conversations regarding the Playing XI depending on conditions. It has also worked in the past for us," the bowling coach mentioned.
"Seamers have done well out here for us. You can always look back and say that additional spinner would have been beneficial but we took the call looking at the conditions.
"We could have been more disciplined. After 12-13 overs, we lacked discipline. I felt we conceded more runs that we would have preferred," Mhambrey added.
To mention after winning the toss, India decided to play a spinner and four seamers against Australia in the much-anticipated WTC Final 2023. Although the move didn't work as planned for them.
On a day where Rohit Sharma's men leaked 327 runs at a run rate close to 4, no bowler - apart from Mohammed Siraj and Mohammed Shami in phases - had a good day at the office. Despite bagging three wickets inside the first 24.1 overs, the partnership between Head and Smith took the game away from the Asian Giants.
India's bowling, field placement and gameplan were heavily criticised by various former cricketers and experts; however, considering the conditions, the Rohit Sharma-led unit can make a turnaround on Day 2.
 "Arjun Bhalla")
