India vs Australia 2017: Mitchell Starc responds to on-field banter with Ravichandran Ashwin

What’s the story?

Australian spearhead Mitchell Starc responded to the on-field banter which was going on between him and Ravichandran Ashwin during the 2^nd Test which was held at the M Chinnaswamy stadium in Bengaluru. Starc was recently ruled out the rest of the series after suffering a stress fracture on his foot spoke to the Back Page on Fox Sports regarding the issue.

"I look forward to bowling to Ashwin in Australia, I might take his advice and hit him on the badge. (The on-field banter has) probably come a lot more from their side than ours. There was a lot made of it before the series and there was so much hype before the series. I think we've just gone about the cricket that we have done for a long period of time now,” said Starc.

"(Australia's fighting draw in the third Test) shows how we are as a group and the Indians have come hard, it's almost a defence mechanism for them. We won the first Test match, we (were there) for the challenge, they were scared of us beating them in India the way they've been playing. So it was almost like a defence mechanism for them and they obviously came out in the second Test match and performed really, really well and got back in," he continued.

In case you didn’t know...

After Ashwin dismissed Starc in the 2^nd innings of the Bangalore Test, he was seen pointing towards his head in celebration to send Starc off. The reason for Ashwin doing so was because Starc did the same to Abhinav Mukund in the first innings of the match.

Starc bowled a bouncer which Mukund top edged, thus leading to the ball flying over the ropes for a six.

Starc was clearly not amused with what had happened and looked back at Mukund, and pointed towards his own head in an attempt to try and tell Mukund that he will bowl another delivery to his head. However, Mukund was unperturbed and responded by pointing to the boundary.

Details:

There was no shortage of on-field action between the players of the two sides throughout the three Tests that took place. In the 2^nd Test, it was the dressing room controversy which was the talk of the town. Kohli’s post-match press conference quotes added fuel to the fire and the BCCI had even filed an official complaint against Smith before withdrawing it.

The third Test in Ranchi was filled with controversy as well regarding Kohli’s shoulder injury incident which took place on the first day of the match. Glenn Maxwell and Smith mocked Kohli after he was dismissed in the first innings and Kohli hit back by doing the same after dismissing Warner in the 2^nd innings of the game.

Extra Cover: India vs Australia 2017: Virat Kohli clutches his shoulder while giving Warner a send-off

Author’s Take

The banter between the two sides does not seem to stop and despite Starc being out of the series, he felt the need to add fuel to the fire by responding to the on-field controversy with Ashwin.

It will be extremely interesting to see how the Indian team perform when they travel down under which they will be doing in December 2018. For now, all the focus will be on the two sides as they have all to play for in the final Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Dharamsala from 25-29th March.