Ashwin defends Rishabh Pant; urges people to embrace him instead of looking for faults

Veteran off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin came to the defence of wicket-keeper batsman Rishabh Pant once again urging people to stop looking for his faults adding that embracing him as the good cricketer that he was would help him improve. "Rishabh Pant is an excellent cricketer and there are many excellent cricketers in the country. Pant was always going to be a good cricketer and he was always going to improve. Only if we back them in such a way that we want them to improve, they will improve faster," said Ashwin.

"If we are going to find loopholes and faults, the cricketers are going to take that much longer. I think it's more of a mindset issue for us and we should embrace how good a cricketer he is. We tend to see a lot of negatives. If we see a lot more positives, we will see a lot more champion cricketers," he added. 

In the ongoing India vs England series, 23-year-old Rishabh Pant has not only let his bat do the talking but has also impressed many with his wicket-keeping skills. Scoring an unbeaten 58 in the first innings of the second Test, Pant also managed to take some amazing catches along with a few remarkable stumpings.

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Ashwin on controversy around Chepauk pitch

Meanwhile, amid the much-heated debate over the Chepauk pitch, Ravichandran Ashwin dismissed the controversy saying that everyone was titled to their own opinion. This comes after veterans such as Michael Vaughan and Mark Waugh criticised the pitch, opining that it was not a "Test standard" wicket.

"Look, it is us who are getting bothered by all this. I mean everybody is entitled to an opinion, whoever is giving their opinion are totally well within their rights to give their opinion. It is us who are reading into it and seeing if it is working or not so we as a cricketing fraternity or as a country, dealing with such sort of accusations, need to get a little better," said Ashwin.

"We must just hold pride in saying how we are playing good cricket. Test matches are played over time. I am completely fine with how the English cricket experts have their opinions because we will also have our opinions reserved when we tour abroad but we don't complain or crib, we just get on with it. I have never seen any of our greats be it our coach Ravi Shastri or Sunil Gavaskar, they have been on lots of tours, but I have never seen them talk about pitches having a lot of grass or all those things," he added.

Ashwin had been named as the Player of the Match after he bagged a second consecutive fifer recording an eight-wicket haul in the second Test, along with his 106-run knock in the second innings. India beat England in the second Test, registering an emphatic 317-run win here at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Tuesday to draw level in the four-match series. 

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(With Agency Inputs)