Confidence key to Success for Ashwin

Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, at first sight looks a confident young bowler who has a thinking brain above his shoulders. Ashwin has always been someone with a sharp and intelligent cricketing mind. His bowling run up, action, stance and position changes according to the requirement and conditions.

The tougher the situation and bigger the batsmen the more Ashwin loves to bowl at them. MS Dhoni his skipper in the IPL and the Indian team too has immense faith in him. Dhoni always throws new challenges at Ashwin, challenges that demand him to out think, to manipulate and he does that. Bowling in the power play over’s in a T20 game to the hardest hitters with the new ball would be a nightmare for a spinner but Ashwin found himself doing that on most occasions.

Success at domestic T20 level meant the same continued in T20Is and ODIs as well. Then came a moment when nothing fell in place, the line was missing so was the thinking behind his bowling. Ashwin was dropped from India’s Test side, a break might have helped him revive and now in the World T20 he is back stronger and sharper.

Ahead of India’s semi-final match with South Africa, he was asked if he saw threat to his position with the form Amit Mishra is in Ashwin said, “I have never bothered about who’s behind my shoulder. That’s not how I play my cricket; I don’t say it just for the sake of it. Unless you keep improving, you’re not going to last the distance. You lose out. It’s pretty much like a business model. If somebody’s behind my shoulder, they can stay there.”

Ask him if he enjoys bowling with the harder ball, “It’s not about what I’m doing or where I’m given the ball. I’ve been playing alongside Mahi for some time, and he probably knows where to use me and where not to use me. I’m always open to bowling in any situation, so for me it doesn’t make any difference,”

Ashwin looks quite confident now and that shows in his bowling too, the ball lands just where it should, move exactly as much as they should and yield results which are expected. He says, “In the last two or three months, I feel that I’m probably at the top of my bowling game. When I reach that phase, I pretty much don’t practice at all. That’s a phase I’m in right now. The ball is landing exactly where I want it to.”

We wish Ashwin all the very best for India’s clash against South Africa where the Men in Blue would need him to cope up with AB de Villiers and Co. with the power packed batting line up they have he would need to outsmart them for India to restrict SA to something achievable or under their score if otherwise.