'He's worried...' - Ben Stokes' batting weakness exposed by Ravichandran Ashwin

India spin spearhead Ravichandran Ashwin extended his domination over Ben Stokes in the recently concluded five-match Test series between India and England.

With England eyeing a first series win in India since 2012/13, the onus was on their captain Ben Stokes to lead his team from the very front. The left-handed batsman started well by scoring 70 runs in the first innings of the first Test as England won the game by 28 runs. However, things did not take long to go south as England lost the following four games and their captain could not score another half-century.

In the following nine innings, he could not even score more than 15 runs on seven occasions. Stokes looked almost clueless against India’s spinners as the likes of Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, and Kuldeep Yadav troubled him. The Tamil Nadu ace castled the England captain twice – in the first and the last Test.

Ravichandran Ashwin on his battle with Ben Stokes:

The twin dismissals further extended Ravichandran Ashwin’s domination over Ben Stokes. He has now dismissed Stokes 13 times in the longest format of the game. In a recent interview, the India star opened up on his duel with the England star.

Talking about the dismissal in the fifth Test when he clean-bowled Stokes, Ravichandran Ashwin stated that the left-hander looked extra cautious about getting LBW against him.

“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,” Ravichandran Ashwin told Indian Express.

“In Hyderabad he wanted to play a lot of the back-foot. It was the slowest surface that I’ve seen in all these years of playing cricket. So when the ball turns, it just beats your bat and doesn’t hit the stump. So Stokes was hanging back. That’s the same load he found himself in Ranchi.

“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 pad at that top half. My intention was to get him out LBW, but the bounce enabled me to get through the transit,” he added.

Both Ashwin and Stokes had contrasting outings in the series. While Ashwin starred with the ball, Stokes struggled to make a big impact. With 26 wickets in 5 Tests, Ashwin finished the series as the highest run-scorer. On the other hand, Stokes managed a modest 199 runs in 10 innings at an average of less than 20.