Always a special feeling to play in front of the home crowd – Ravichandran Ashwin

It was a magical display from Ravichandran Ashwin with the bat as he carved his sixth Test century to uplift India from the early ordeal that they were subjected to by the brilliance of Hasan Mahmud. Ashwin came together with Ravindra Jadeja to knit a 195-runs stand for the seventh wicket, propelling India to the driver’s seat at the end of the first day’s play.

Talking in an interview after Stumps, Ashwin highlighted his incredible experience of playing in the M Chidambaram Stadium which is also his home ground. This was his second century at the venue and he has already claimed four fifers, making him one of the leading tormentors of visitors for India.

Shedding some light on the feeling, Ashwin said, “Always a special feeling to play in front of the home crowd. This is a ground I completely love to play cricket in. It's given me a lot of wonderful memories. The last time I got a hundred, you were the coach Ravi bhai (Ravi Shastri). It does feel special. It helps that I have come back at the back of a T20 tournament (TNPL), worked quite a bit on my batting.”

He further explained the conditions and how he synced his batting with the same, adding, “Of course, I have always been wafting my bat around outside off-stump. Worked on a few things and on a surface like this with a bit of spice, if you're going after the ball, might as well go after it really hard like Rishabh does. It's an old Chennai surface with a bit of bounce and carry. The red soil pitch allows you to play a few shots if you are willing to just get in line and give it a bit of a tonk when there's width.”

Talking about the monumental partnership with Jadeja, Ashwin stated, “He (Jadeja) was of real help, there was a point in time where I was really sweating and getting a bit tired, Jaddu noticed it quickly and guided me through that phase. Jaddu has been one of our best batters for our team in the last few years. Him being there, pretty solid and he was also very helpful in terms of telling me that we don't have to convert twos into threes which was really helpful for me.”

Dropping a bit of hint about how the surface might react tomorrow, Ashwin concluded, “It's a typical, old-fashioned Chennai pitch where overspin will fetch a bit of bounce. The wicket will start doing its tricks much later in the game. There's enough in it for the quicks, good carry, good bounce if we present the seam nice and hard. The new ball will do a bit, there'll be some help for the bowlers, we'll have to start afresh tomorrow. There's a bit in the pitch, it's still damp underneath, so hopefully as it dries out, it quickens up.”