The veteran Indian off-spinner, R Ashwin urged cricket fans to give some breathing space to new head coach Rahul Dravid after India’s thrilling 5-wicket win over New Zealand in the first T20I in Jaipur on Wednesday. India chased down 166 against the Blackcaps and took a 1-0 lead in the three-match series in the first match and begin the Rohit Sharma-Rahul Dravid era with a bang.
Talking about Dravid’s coaching style, R Ashwin said: “It’s too early for me to comment on Rahul Dravid’s coaching style, but he’s put the hard yards in through the U-19 level etc. “He won’t leave much to chance, and he’ll be all about preparation and process, so that we can bring the happiness back into the Indian dressing room.”
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R Ashwin also did a phenomenal job, picking 2 wickets for 23 runs from his 4 overs while Bhuvneshwar Kumar also grabbed a couple of wickets as well which helped India to restrict New Zealand to 164 for 6 after Rohit won the toss and elected to bowl first. During the chase, Suryakumar Yadav (62) and Rohit Sharma (48) played phenomenal knocks which helped the men in blue to chase down the target with 2 balls to spare at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium.
Talking about the same, R Ashwin said, “It’s tricky in T20s, you can’t miss your lengths and you don’t know when to toss it up but here it did help to give it some air. It was a slightly under-par score and we thought 170-180 would be par. We thought we would cruise home around the 15th over, but that’s T20 cricket for you. I bowled the first over in the powerplay, and figuring out the pace to bowl is important and it took me some time to figure that out.”
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Describing the challenges of bowling in such conditions, R Ashwin said, “It’s about varying to pace and knowing when to vary it. “It’s important to take each of the 24 balls as an event, and look at each ball in isolation and as an opportunity. You might have to play catch-up, but the batsman is trying to play catch-up and trying to play you too, so you can’t get intimidated.”
