Ashwin kept on bowling in right areas: Pujara

Cheteshwar Pujara defended team-mate Ravichandran Ashwin after a poor outing by the premier off-spinner left India with the possibility of facing a daunting task in the fourth Test against England here.

England relied on Jos Buttler's gutsy half century to take a competitive lead of 233 runs by stumps on the third day.

In contrast to Moeen Ali's five-wicket haul, Ashwin struggled to get going on Saturday and finished with 1-78 in 35 overs despite his good bowling form earlier in the series.

Pujara though defended his teammate.

"I don't think he had a bad day. He didn't get too many wickets but he kept on bowling in the right areas. Sometimes as a bowler you do have such days when you are bowling but you might not end up picking too many wickets," Pujara said.

The Tamil Nadu off-spinner couldn't use the footmarks created by the trio of Mohammed Shami (3/53), Ishant Sharma (2/36) and Jasprit Bumrah (1/51 in 19 overs).

First-innings centurion Pujara said, "Someone like him, he is a clever bowler, and he has done really well for us throughout the domestic season as well as overseas. So, I don't think he has bowled badly at all.

"But yes the pitch has slowed down a lot and that could be the reason some of his balls (deliveries) didn't go through as much he might have wanted.

"It is their team combination. I don't think it matters too much, but being an off-spinner, Ashwin bowls well to left-handers. I don't think it makes a huge difference."
"I just accepted that fact and kept working on my game. I don't think there was anything wrong with my technique or my game. So I just trusted it and it paid off in the last Test match and when I got fifty I knew that I was up for a big one. I was batting well, so I just kept on batting, and things worked well for me in this innings."
"Obviously I am not trying to take any credit away from how he bowled. But we still should have batted better against him. I think in the second innings our batsmen will have a better game plan against Moeen."