We will make 650 and try to put Australia back in - Ashwin

Melbourne, Dec 27 (CRICKETNMORE): Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin is confident about teams batting and believes that Australia's first innings score of 530 is within their reach.

Smith century put Australia on top in Melbourne Test

Praising about Australian Captain smith, he said "We looked to get them out early; that was the plan when we started the day. Unfortunately Smith batted really well and they got a bit too many runs for our liking."

"Anybody who is in such form, you hope to get some luck and get him out early. But we haven't managed to find his edge and the one we found, we put down. So, it's one of those phases. He is batting very well.

"But if you look at the game overall, this score is par for this wicket which seems pretty slow and flat. We'll take 110-odd for 1 and we'll like to pile on the runs tomorrow.

"I am no one to comment on the state of the game but if you ask me, I'll say only one thing - we will make 650 and try to put them back in," said a confident Ashwin. 

Speaking about his own perfromance he said,"I worked really hard and put in an honest effort. I put in whatever I have practiced over the last few weeks here and tried to be very disciplined with my skills. I have bowled pretty well in patches before but this is probably the best overall performance I have had in the series."
 

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CRICKETNMORE (inputs from Agencies)