In the latest episode of ESPNcricinfo Videocast that airs on Saturday, R. Ashwin talks about his views about four-day cricket, his future, his accuracy as a bowler, what makes him click in short format cricket, future of spinners and how they can stay relevant in the ever evolving game of cricket.
“I am good at T20 cricket. If my body holds up, I see a purple patch coming up for me in Test cricket”, says Ravichandran Ashwin when Sanjay Manjarekar, host of ESPNcricinfo, asks him about his future plans. Ashwin does not favour 4-day cricket. He says, “I am a spinner and you’re taking the fifth day out of the game, you’re taking out a very fascinating aspect of the game.” Ashwin shares the secret of his ability to produce variations in finger spin with so much accuracy and the influence Woorkeri Raman’s — former Indian cricketer and current coach of the India women’s team — coaching technique had on him.
“W.V. Raman who is known to be a straight forward and extremely disciplined man trained us to throw the ball accurately that should land above the stumps.”
R Ashwin further adds, “In fact, W.V. Raman helped me master my rhythm. He was the first person who with or without his knowledge, inculcated this self-conscious training inside me. He would keep telling me, you’re running 10% slower or you’re running 15% faster. And this put me in a great place when I started playing first-class cricket. “
Ashwin has one of the best record of bowling with a new ball. “I like a new ball because of the fizz that I get on it. One of my strengths is to be able to put revs on the hard ball as it responds better to the pitch. But I generally like to use the arm ball in first 2 or 3 overs because when you use the arm ball, it challenges both the edges of the batsman and forces him to go across the line which is rendered risky. “With a new ball I use my middle finger more than the index finger but when I bowl with an older ball, I try and get over the top. Sometimes, I don’t use index finger to go over the top, it is behind and I still put the revs and that’s when the ball actually goes the other way,” he adds.
Commenting on future of finger spin, Ashwin says, “I am really surprised that in the last IPL people could not pick up what I was bowling. They thought I was bowling the carrom ball but actually I was bowling reverse carrom”. IANS