Ricky Ponting on India leaving out Ravi Ashwin: ‘A make of picking bowling attack just for first innings of the game’

Former Australia skipper Ricky Ponting has scrutinized India’s decision to leave out Ravichandran Ashwin in the World Test Championship final against Australia at the Oval in London.“India have made a make of picking a bowling attack just for first innings of the game. Australia have many left-handers; Ashwin would trouble the left-handers more than Jadeja. I saw the grass, yes there was grass but the deeper I looked, it seemed dry to me,” Ponting said on-air on Star Sports.Explaining the decision, India captain Rohit Sharma, speaking at the toss said: “We have four seamers and one spinner: Ravindra Jadeja. It has always been tough. He has been such a matchwinner for us for so many years. Leaving him out is not a great occasion but you have to do things needed for the team.”
To include Ashwin or not was the big selection question ahead of the game with contrasting opinions flowing even from the former players. Sachin Tendulkar had advised India to punt on Ashwin while Dinesh Karthik suggested they don’t.

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It came down to the pitch at the Oval. In the last two seasons, it has gained a reputation for bounce and pace. Surrey have not picked a special spinner in any of three games probably tells the story. They have all three games here this seasons, and on all three instances, the batted second.
New South Wales quick Sean Abbott, who plays for Surrey, told cricket.com.au that the pitch was “bloody quick”. “The ball was flying through. There was probably more nip in it for slower guys, there was a little bit of swing, but I can assure you there was some pace in the wicket.”
That nip for the spinners was the thread that Ashwin’s fate hung on. Would it be prudent for India to roll the dice with him, and hope he has enough ammunition to play a big part in the concluding phase of the game where it begins to turn.
Tendulkar’s argument to play Ashwin was regardless of the spin on the surface.
“It need not be always a turning track as sometimes the spinners rely a lot on the bounce, sometimes that little bit of zip that they get off the pitch, also on the overhead conditions and it depends a lot on the shiny side of the ball.
“If they are able to get that drift, they can make the ball talk in the air without the pitch coming into play. So, Oval is going to be good venue for India,” said Tendulkar in his website 100mbsports.

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Karthik held a contrasting opinion. “Leave out Ashwin and play four pacers. I enjoyed Ashwin bowling in Southampton, but – is the coach gonna do the same thing again? I doubt it. Umesh Yadav has bowled well in the nets. He is looking sharp, and feeling good body-wise. I have a strong feeling they’ll go with Umesh,” he said on Cricbuzz.
From the photographs that emerged on the eve of the game, the strip looks like an evenly-grassed surface. But the blazing sunshine could mean that the moure of the surface would quickly dissipate. The practice pitches certainly had pace and bounce, as some of the Indian batsmen got hit . In Ravi Ashwin’s Youtube channel, Oval’s curator Lee Fortis has assured him of bounce. It’s the bounciest of surfaces in England, and the batsmen should be wary of it.
The two captains too had a slightly different opinion on the surface.
Rohit Sharma noticed that the pitch has been changing its hue every day. “The pitch actually changes quite a bit day to day. Today it’s looking the way it is. Tomorrow it might be slightly different. So the message to the boys has been clear, all 15 must be ready to play at any point in time,” he said.
“But yeah, it looks a bit of help for the seamers definitely. With the overhead conditions as well, it’s going to ass seamers a fair bit,” he added.

Steve Smith, though, reckons at some point in the game, it could ass India’s spinners. “The Oval can present itself with some spin occasionally, particularly as the game wears on so we could face some sort of similarities to what we had in India at certain stages of the game,” he told cricket.com.au.