"Captain wanted to declare being afraid of another injury"- Ravichandran Ashwin on T Natarajan facing Mitchell Starc
Ravichandran Ashwin and India's fielding coach R Sridhar revealed how Ajinkya Rahane was worried when T Natarajan was facing Mitchell Starc in the Gabba Test.
The Indian skipper was so concerned that he even contemplated declaring the Indian innings.
T Natarajan came out to bat as the last man in the first innings of the fourth Test. India were already a bowler short with Navdeep Saini carrying a niggle.
As a result, Ajinkya Rahane was concerned given Indian bowlers' injury record on the tour.
Chatting with R Sridhar on his Youtube channel, Ravichandran Ashwin revealed:
"That over when he faced Mitchell Starc. The nervous moments you guys went through(team management) while he was at the crease. In fact, our captain wanted to declare being afraid of another injury."
R Sridhar: "Captain came charging to the coaches room. 'Shall we declare? If he gets injured, we will be left with only three bowlers in the second innings.'"
Ashwin: "That was the problem. Rahane must have been worried if he or Rohit Sharma might have had to bowl."
Sridhar: "He was really worried if he would only have three bowlers if Starc injured Natarajan. Nattu told you he didn't see the ball."
Ashwin: "He did. But truth be told he played straight forward defence and the ball stopped right next to him. I praised him for his soft hands. He corrected me, 'No, bro. The ball got jammed between my bat and the pitch. That's the reason.'"
T Natarajan survived Mitchell Starc's probing over and remained unbeaten on one as Mohammed Siraj was cleaned up at the other end by Josh Hazlewood.
India went on to secure a historic victory later as they chased down 328 in the fourth innings of the Test match.
'He came as a 'Netarajan' & transformed into Natarajan': R Ashwin
T Natarajan, initially part of the squad as a net bowler, went on to make his debut in all formats for India on the Australia tour.
Ravichandran Ashwin talked about how confident they were (given the circumstances) that T Natarajan would make his Test debut even though he stayed back as a net bowler after the limited-overs series ended.
"Nattu will get his debut cap at Gabba. He won't leave Australia before making his Test debut - that was the talk among us right from the start. He came as a Netarajan(net bowler) and transformed into Natarajan," said Ashwin.
The left-arm seamer claimed three wickets in his debut Test and kept things tight in both the innings of the Gabba Test.
Natarajan was at his best in the three-T20I series against Australia. He took six wickets and bowled with an economy rate of 6.92 as India secured a 2-1 series win in the shortest format.