On Thursday, at MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, Indian all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin played a brilliant innings to save India from a tight situation against Bangladesh on the opening day of the first Test match.
In the first innings of this match, Ashwin scored an unbeaten 102 runs which raised India’s total to 339/6 at the end of Day 1 Test in Chepauk after local men started poorly.
Among all six centuries made by the hometown hero during his career as a professional cricketer, this one is remarkable because it brought him up to sixth place on the list of active Indian players with the most number of centuries.
Virat Kohli, the star batter, leads with 29 centuries while veteran Cheteshwar Pujara follows him closely with his 19 tons.
Rohit Sharma, the Indian captain is ranked third on the list having made 12 hundred in Test cricket while Ajinkya Rahane had also scored 12 centuries.
KL Rahul, the star wicketkeeper batter is fifth on this list having scored 8 centuries, and Ashwin comes in at number six with six triple-digit scores in this format of play.
Ashwin’s latest ton was much awaited as he came up with a brilliant counter attacking innings which helped India escape from a precarious position of144/6.
When Bangladesh asked the visitors to bat first, skipper Rohit was sent back after scoring just six runs with a peach of a delivery by Hasan Mahmud. Thus game started on shocking note.
Shubman Gill, who substituted the fallen captain, could not score even a single run and got out for 0 run due to Mahmud’s fine bowling. Again Kohli became a victim as Mahmud took his third victim of the Indian stalwart .
In this way Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rishabh Pant brought some stability in innings by putting together a 62-run fourth wicket partnership before being dismissed at 39 runs of Mahmud.
In spite of 56 runs scored by Jaiswal; he fell to Nahid Rana while KL Rahul went out after making only 16 runs against Hasan Miraz.
To ensure India’s safety, Ravindra Jadeja and Ashwin formed an unbeaten 195-run partnership that calmed the nerves before stumps on the first day at Chepauk were called by the umpire.
Also, three years after his last century in the same outfield, Ashwin scored a ton that equaled legendary MS Dhoni’s record of 6 Test hundreds for India.
