The Indian spin bowling spearhead R. Ashwin had a spectacular day on the field. He went on to take 6 wickets on day 3 tumbling the Kiwis batting line up. Riding on his superb bowling, Team India went on to stop the Kiwi batting line up on a total of 299, team India decided not to enforce the follow and instead batted again piling up some more runs on the board.

An amused and cheerful R. Ashwin at the end of the day in the post day interview said “It isn’t very easy to keep picking five-wicket hauls. It is important to capitalize when you have the momentum with you. I treat the five-wicket hauls like a batsman treats a century”.

During his way to 6 wicket haul, he went on to eclipse Ishant Sharma’s record of 209 wickets in Test cricket, thus becoming eighth highest wicket taker for India. Here again, Ashwin found something cheeky and went on to pinch the Indian bowlers as he said “You need other bowlers to not pick wickets to get these hauls [laughs] but I am really enjoying it. I needed to get my rhythm right, I do not usually find it easy at the start of a spell. Takes me 5-6 overs to get into the groove and once I get into the groove my body responds. the ball isn’t carrying well and credit to Rahane for standing up close and picking these catches. He put one down in the morning which usually doesn’t happen”.

Ashwin also mentioned that missed catch opportunity which ultimately resulted in a run-out in the same way as Guptill was dismissed. Speaking on that incident, he said “I should have taken that catch during the second run-out. The wicket is a quality wicket, very good to bat on. We hope it wears out and gives us the ammunition tomorrow.”
Team India is leading by 276 runs and still has10 wickets in hands. They will eye to bat almost 2 more sessions in order to keep match out Kiwi’s reach.