Rahul Dravid: Partnership between Axar Patel and R Ashwin was game changing | Cricket News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: ‘Seven star’ Ravindra Jadeja turned the game on its head on Sunday morning as his precise bowling led to a complete collapse of the Australian innings on Day 3 morning.
But head coach Rahul Dravid feels that the Axar Patel and R Ashwin 114-run 8th wicket partnership in the first innings was the something that changed things for India.
India were tottering at 139 for 7 in reply to Australia’s first innings score of 263. But Axar (74) and Ashwin (37) put on a superb fight to take India to 262, just a run short of the Aussie score.
The visitors then skittled out for 113 in their second innings to set up a lowly 115-run target for India which the hosts achieved in 26.4 overs in the second session on the third day.

“This Test match moved up and down, but today morning it moved really quickly for us. I think it was the partnership between Axar and Ashwin that changed things. We wanted to chase something close to 200-225 and that partnership enabled us to get back, or we’d have been trailing,” Dravid said after the match.
As Rohit Sharma marshalled his troops to perfection in the first session on third day, Dravid also heaped praise on the India skipper.
“I think he (Rohit) has been brilliant. He has the respect of the dressing room. He is one of those guys who has been there a long time. The kind of person who doesn’t speak a lot, but when he does they all listen.

“He deeply cares a lot about the dressing room and the players. We are very lucky to have Rohit take over the leadership from someone like Virat,” Dravid said.
India now have an unassailable 2-0 lead over Australia in the series. With the win in Delhi, India also retained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.