India had pushed Australia on the backfoot yesterday by reducing them to 259 for five but let the advantage slip today and the hosts ended up with 530 on the board. In reply, the Indians were 108 for one when stumps were drawn on the second day today.
Ashwin said it was disappointing to let go of the advantage but exuded confidence that his side's batsmen will do the job on day three.
"They got a bit too many runs for our liking. But if you look at the overall game, the score is pretty par for this pitch. The wicket seems slow and it is pretty flat. We'll take 108/1 and we'll like to pile on the runs tomorrow."
Australia finished their first innings just ahead of tea with Smith scoring his third successive hundred of the series. The young skipper was last man out for 192 runs, and he got fine support from Brad Haddin (55) and Ryan Harris (74).
"We continue to think he has a weakness over there. We will continue to target him in the next innings and the next Test match as well. He doesn't quite look that comfortable to us."
"We were delaying the run-scoring (against the tail-enders) and we were pretty much ready for it. But it wasn't until the last 30 or 40 minutes when Smith teed off a bit. There was not a lot of lateral movement for us to exploit. We had plans in place to make sure Smith didn't get away, but as it turned out he batted really well and towards the end he teed off," Ashwin added.
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