Ravichandran Ashwin, the Indian off-spinner, has hit out at critics for crediting the pitch at Motera for India's victory in the third Test of the series against England. The pink-ball encounter was wrapped up in less than six sessions, making it the shortest Test since the second World War. 30 wickets fell across two days, with Indian spinners - Axar Patel, R Ashwin and Washington Sundar - bagging 19 of them, in less than 69 overs. The victory not only helped India take a 2-1 lead in the series, which kept their hopes alive for a berth in the World Test Championship final but dashed that of the visitors.

England registered scores of 112 and 81 across the two innings. Even as the hosts were bundled out for 145 in their first essay, which included a fifer for Joe Root, leading to questions over the quality of the pitch for a five-day encounter. Even as Virat Kohli, the Indian captain, had said that irrespective of the conditions being conducive for the bowlers, the batsmen didn't apply themselves well enough, as majority of the wickets fell to deliveries that went straight instead of turning.

However, Ashwin pointed out the other instances for India's pink-ball matches - against Bangladesh in Kolkata and against Australia in Adelaide - and said that on each occasion the games have ended in less than half the time allotted to the contest.

"There have been some people who have messaged me and said the match has finished in two days," Ashwin said in a press conference, on Saturday (February 27). "What about all the three pink-ball Test matches we've played, everything's ended within three days' time. I do not know what to say because when somebody just throws an opinion out there about the surface - and having had played the game - unfortunately maybe they've not played the pink-ball Test matches so they do not understand this facet of the game. My angst against the whole thing is the fact that when people say something there are so many of them who are watching the same picture but are not able to paint a different one compared to somebody who is driving and selling a certain case to us and this needs to stop."

"The bowler wants to win the game. The batsman needs to bat well to get runs. No question about it. What makes a good surface? Who defines this? Seam on the first day and then bat well and then spin on the last two days? Come on! Who makes all these rules, we need to get over it and not talk about whatever picture you want to paint. If you're asking if it is a good Test surface, I don't see any of the players coming from England having an issue with the surface. They want to improve, they look like they want to have a contest. Is it the players and the people who are reporting back that want their players to not complete and complain about the pitches? Because we have never done that on any of the tours. "

"Why would you talk about the surface to us time and time again? Has there been any instance where the surface has been spoken about at any other place, any other country we have played games in? I somehow find it very, very funny that when they speak about the surface, it immediately gets quoted all over in our press. And that is the issue here. Because there have been instances... we went to New Zealand and both Tests got within five days. A total of five days for two Test matches and nobody quoted it. There is a video that's doing the rounds where Virat in South Africa is saying that I'm not here to talk about the pitch. That is how we have been taught to play cricket and I don't know why we indulge in such thoughts, promote such thoughts. That's why I say, let them sell it, buying is always our choice."

This comes at the back of a series of tweets the offspinner made on Friday. He had stated, "Products are sold using various marketing strategies and that's an accepted practice! We now live in an era where ideas are also being sold to us and it's a classic example of "outbound marketing", however I would like to add that buying ideas being sold to us is like telling us "you can't think on your own" and here we will teach you how to think and also help you think the way we want you to think.

"After having played the game at this level for a decade, I can safely say that "As long as we are going to buy it, they will shove it down our throat".Finally. We can always have and stand by our opinions even if it's against the majority as long as we know that it is our own and not the one that's been sold to us! "The choice is always ours"."

Even as many confused it to be a dig at Yuvraj Singh, for claiming that Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble would have taken 800-1000 wickets if they had played on such pitches, and some even going to the extent of comparing it to his stand on the Farmers protest, Ashwin clarified himself and said his words with regards to the credit being taken away from the team for their victory.

"Thoughts being put across and planted to people is really hilarious and I find it heinous to a point, where you have a thought process and you want everyone to follow that and think that and condition it," he said. "With thoughts what happens is, you condition people into believing in a certain way, so you watch a match, you watch India win the game and at most, everyone's saying I'm happy India won. You don't want people to go back home and say 'India is not winning the game, it's the pitch that's winning game'. That's not what I want people to do. Anyway I know that's going to come up, these are conditioning that's happening and it has happened for a long time. It's important people sell things but we must know what we must buy.

"The reason behind my tweets were definitely not in context to anybody in particular. When I read Yuvi pa's tweet, I actually didn't get affected at all because I didn't find that he was telling us anything, trying to suggest anything. It just felt like a really plain tweet, saying 'we were good and'. For me, the state of mind I am in, I didn't find it anything wrong or agenda-driven or anything like that. I know Yuvi pa for a long time and I have the utmost respect for him."