Champion off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin is spinning a web around the English batsmen on his home turf in Chennai and his latest victim is all-rounder Ben Stokes.
Ashwin has been near unplayable on this track thus far and his repertoire of skills was on full display when he completely bamboozled Ben Stokes with his drift and turn.
The legendary off-spinner floated an overpitched delivery to Stokes in the 24th over of the England innings. On first thought, one would have imagined that Stokes missed out on a potential drive but this is what Ravichandran Ashwin does with his drift.
Stokes proceeded to play all around it and eventually saw his stumps knocked over, leaving England in dire-straits at 5/52.
Earlier, The visitors got off to a disastrous start to their first innings as they lost as many as four wickets in the morning session.
Rory Burns registered his second consecutive duck of the series after he was trapped LBW by Ishant Sharma before the spinners got into the act.
Ravichandran Ashwin soon got into the act as did debutant Axar Patel as the duo went on to claim three crucial wickets on the second morning.
Dom Sibley fell to Ashwin after he edged an attempted to sweep to Virat Kohli at leg-slip, as did skipper Joe Root, who top-edged the sweep to short fine-leg to give Axar his maiden Test wicket.
Dan Lawrence’s troubled stay at the crease during which he managed 9 off 52 balls, came to an end on the last ball of the session as he edged one straight to short-leg off the bowling of Ravichandran Ashwin, leaving the visitors reeling at 4/39.
Meanwhile, this is the 9th time that Ashwin has knocked over Ben Stokes in Test match cricket. Overall, the Tamil Nadu off-spinner has dismissed Stokes 13 times in international cricket- the most by any bowler against the all-rounder.
Stokes dismissal was Ashwin’s 266th scalp on home soil and he has now leapfrogged Harbhajan Singh to become the second leading wicket-taker for India at home.
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