"On this wicket, there is help for spinners so you don't need to do anything extra," he said. "When you are putting a bit more effort and body into the ball, then you are getting the ball to spin. When you are hitting the deck hard, then only you are getting the ball to turn. "If you are releasing it slowly, there is not much help for the slow bowlers. So hitting the deck with a decent speed is important and that's creating difficulty for batsmen. If you bowl slow, then batsman are moving to back foot and adjusting," Axar said. So was India's batting performance a statement to all those who panned the track? "When we play, we don't think that outside world matters to us and we would like to give a message. We played normal cricket. If it was fourth day, we would have thought about declaring but it was third day and we had enough time. We thought we have to bat long," he spoke about the team's strategy. Having already picked up four wickets to Ravichandran Ashwin's six in the game so far, the injured Ravindra Jadeja's stopgap replacement spoke about the respect he has for his senior national and IPL teammate.

"Myself and Ash have played a lot of cricket together and I have learnt a lot over the years about mindset from him. We have different actions and variations, so we generally talk about mindsets and working out various batsmen." He was in line for a debut during the first Test but a knee niggle at the eleventh hour led to him being sidelined. "Actually, I didn't want to play my first match with a niggle and if I broke down in the middle of the game, that would have put my team in trouble. It wouldn't have been a good thing and I didn't want that to happen. "So it was a conscious decision taken after consulting the physio. I was frustrated but positive side is I could give my 100 percent in second match."

Poll

Who will win the Punjab Elections?

BJP 32.86%

AAP 41.43%

INC 25.71%

Submit

View All In Poll

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever