‘Door not closed on Ashwin, Jadeja’

Johannesburg: Indian bowling coach Bharat Arun said the door is not closed on R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja in the lead-up to the 2019 World Cup despite the emergence of a red-hot wrist spin duo in Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal. “They are extremely positive. They are not afraid to flight the ball. They are not afraid to impart extra spin to gain something, and they are not dependent on the wicket," said Arun.

"They get a lot out of the air. They have enough skills to beat batsmen in the air and they back their instinct.They have troubled the best batsmen in the business back home. We were extremely confident that they would come here to South Africa and make inroads into their batting," he added. 

Yet, the coach said that the World Cup spots are still open. "We had a good pool of bowlers and given the volume of cricket we are playing, we needed to keep rotating these bowlers and keep them fresh for every format. These two bowlers showed a lot of promise. We thought that in these conditions, wrist spinners would do lot more than finger spinners, and they have come to the party here," he said. — PTI