It might be Khawaja’s first look in a Test on Indian soil, after being a part of the touring Australia squads for the collection in 2013 and 2017.
He feels Ashwin will current the hardest problem on tracks which are characteristically anticipated to favour spinners.
“Ashwin is a gun. He is very skillful, has got a lot of tricky little variations. He uses the crease quite well too. If you asked me the same question when I was younger, I probably wouldn’t have been able to answer a lot of things because I didn’t really learn about how to face what off-spinners are doing,” Khawaja instructed the Sydney Morning Herald.
“But it’s one of those really good challenges. The wicket’s going to turn here at some point, whether day one, day three or day four; and he is going to be in the game and bowl a lot of overs. So it’s all about figuring out how I’m going to play against him, how I’m going to score runs against him, what he might do. If you bat a long time against him, he’s going to change his game plans against you.
“He’s not the sort of man who’ll do the identical factor again and again; he will attempt to work you out,” Khawaja added.
The Pakistan-born batter was recently named Australia’s ‘Test Cricketer of the Year’ and the left-hander is expected to play a big role in his team’s quest to win its first Test series in India since 2004-05.
“We’ve learnt so much over the past 10 years, significantly the sorts of wickets we are able to get (in India) and the way we expect we are able to carry out and exit and win Test matches out right here. It appears like we’re in a greater spot than earlier than, nevertheless it’s all the time going to be robust,” he said.
Khawaja has little doubt that tackling the Indian spinners — Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel — on deteriorating tracks will hold the key to his team’s success.
“If it is a good wicket, the brand new ball might be the simplest time to bat. But as quickly because the wicket deteriorates in India and you have got spinners bowling with a brand new ball, that is in all probability the toughest time to bat wherever,” said Khawaja.
“When we practice, the brand new ball on spinning wickets is all the time the toughest time. People assume opening the batting is the very best time to bat within the subcontinent, it’s when it is flat, nevertheless it’s not when it is spinning when there’s a lot variation with that new ball. Once it softens up, it will get simpler to foretell what it should do.”
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com