Mitchell Starc To Hit Ravichandran Ashwin On Head When India Visits Austrlia Next
Mar 21, 2017 at 8:52 PM
Australia pace spearhead Mitchell Starc has threatened to hit Ravichandran Ashwin on the head when the India off-spinner visits Australia next.
The ongoing Border-Gavaskar series has been marred by some fiery banter and sledging and one notable incident took place between the Australia pacer and the Indian spinner during the second Test in Bengaluru.
Starc’s participation in the ongoing four-Test series was cut short after he suffered a fractured foot. The injury-prone bowler suffered a stress fracture to a metatarsal in his right foot after playing the first two Tests in Pune and Bangalore. He had to return home midway through the series but before that, he had grabbed the headlines for all the wrong reasons. The 27-year old’s had pointed his finger towards his head after Abhinav Mukund had top-edged him for a six during the Bengaluru Test. But Ashwin took the revenge by giving Starc a brilliant send-off in the second innings of the match. The Tamil Nadu ace mimicked Starc with a similar gesture.
The Australian pacer did not react after being taunted by Ashwin during the match and any hopes of giving it back was soon quashed as he had to return home. However, he is waiting for the Indian spinner to visit Australia to take the revenge.
“I look forward to bowling to Ashwin in Australia. (I might) take his advice and hit him on the badge,” Starc was quoted as saying by cricket.com.au.
Speaking about the banter and sledging that has taken the centre-stage in the ongoing series, Starc said:
[The on-field banter has] probably come a lot more from their side than ours. There was a lot made of it before the series and there was so much hype before the series. I think we’ve just gone about the cricket that we have done for a long period of time now. [Australia’s fighting draw in the third Test] shows how we are as a group and the Indians have come hard, it’s almost a defence mechanism for them.