Ashwin warms up for England series with 6-27 for Surrey

Surrey’s R Ashwin (right) celebrates a Somerset wicket with teammate Mark Stoneman at The Oval yesterday. Pic/Getty Images

Ravichandran Ashwin sounded a warning bell for the English batsmen ahead of the five-Test series with a superb match-turning spell of six for 27 as Surrey bundled out Somerset for 69 in their second innings of the English County Championship contest here.

Looking to get some quality match practice ahead of joining the Indian team in Durham on Wednesday, Ashwin did more than enough with 58 overs under his belt and a match haul of 7 for 127.

In fact, the veteran off-spinner bowled 15 unchanged overs with the new Dukes ball and got able support from left-arm spinner Dan Moriarty who took 4 for 20 as Somerset were all out for 69 in only 29.1 overs after scoring 429 in their first essay. This was after Surrey were all out for 240, adding only a single run to their overnight score of 239 for eight. Surrey now chase a 258-run target. The script entirely changed in the second innings as Ashwin ran through the opposition, getting enough drift and also using the carrom ball and off-breaks judiciously.

Ashwin's performance is a welcome sign for skipper Virat Kohli, who would like his premier spinner to be in peak form during the Test series starting August 4.
The opposition will also be wary and Surrey skipper Rory Burns will certainly be providing inputs along with rival left-arm spinner Jack Leach.

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