Veteran India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has given a befitting reply to the ‘experts’ asking him to be a better ‘wicket-taker’. While speaking at a press conference before India’s T20 World Cup clash against Scotland on Friday, he said that he feels ‘sorry’ for them as well as that their understanding of the game which is still ‘backward’ in many ways.
However, Ravichandran Ashwin said that taking a wicket is not something that “just happens” and it is played more in partnerships where one bowler put the pressure on the opponent with dot balls and the other picks up the wickets.
He said: “For a lot of people who are considering this game and are also giving expert opinions on the game, I sometimes feel sorry for them… I feel the understanding of the game is still backward in so many ways. For me, when you call upon a bowler and say ‘he’s got to pick wickets’ it’s about the lengths… Most often than not wicket-taking is seen as something that just happens. It’s not like that… For every wicket, a bowler is picking there’s an over that’s bowled before or after that’s created that wicket. So we need to understand that every wicket that falls in an over is a result of dot balls played by a batter or bowled by another bowler.”
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Ravichandran Ashwin further added that he can certainly go for taking wickets but he prefers to bowl with the good economy as well as giving dot balls.
He continued: “…I can’t shun my responsibility of bowling dot balls and economically. But in the process, if I get wickets, I am getting wickets. I also need to keep in mind the interest of the team and what the team expects from me at that particular ball… Easy for me to throw the ball up for a wicket but remember every T20 game is won by a margin of two runs or a ball or two balls so I need to keep that in mind every single time.”
However, the veteran spinner had to face criticism where former cricketers like Sanjay Manjrekar saying him just a run-containing spinner during the IPL 2021. But he bounced back and played the T20I match after four years. He claimed 2 wickets for 14 runsagainst Afghanistan as well. He also stated that new variations are so difficult to expresse that experts are still using old and cliched terms like carrom balls and arm balls for them as well. Meanwhile, he has so far played 47 T20Is, picking up 54 wickets which came at an average of 22.35 and an economy rate of 6.89.
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Ravichandran Ashwin asserted: “The perception of finger spin needs to change, I feel… Ever since 2017, I have evolved as a T20 bowler. I bowl a lot more deliveries that are so subtle that people are still dubbing them as carrom balls, off-spin, and arm-balls.. I am trying to create different angles, different seam positions. The ball I dismissed Gulbadin Naib with yesterday was anything but a carrom ball. I have worked on it.”
“I have got so many more options than I used to have at that time [2017] and when I bowl to a right-hander, I think like a left-arm spinner or a leg spinner. And when I bowl to a left-hander I think like an off-spinner. Thinking creates the intent which is eventually translated into practice and games. So there’s a lot of work gone there, it’s just the conception of what I do needs to change,” Ravichandran Ashwin concluded.