County stint will depend upon feasibility, reckons Ravichandran Ashwin

India’s premier Test spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on Monday said that playing county cricket ahead of the five-Test series against England will depend a lot on feasibility factor. The bowler, himself, worked on skills in England with a county stint, last year. Fellow team-mate Cheteshwar Pujara has been associated with county cricket for a couple of years now with his stints at Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire.

This season, Ishant Sharma will be playing for Surrey in his maiden county spell. Pacer Varun Aaron has also signed a county deal with Leicestershire for the summer. Among all this, the decision of India skipper Virat Kohli being given the permission by BCCI to skip the one-off Test against debutants Afghanistan to play county cricket for Surrey as a much-needed preparation for the five-match series against England has been a positive now.

Feasibility needs to be worked upon, says Ashwin

On his own participation in the county season, “County cricket plan is definitely there, but feasibility needs to be worked upon,” informed Ashwin on the sidelines of a promotional event for Oppo that he took part in along with India teammates Rohit Sharma and Hardik Pandya, as reported by Deccan Chronicle.

Last season Ashwin, who is no longer a regular in white ball cricket for the country, had utilized the free time to play in the English county season in a few matches for Worcestershire.

Ashwin will be seen leading Kings XI Punjab in his maiden captaincy stint during the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) that is set to commence on April 7.

“I am looking forward to doing it to the utmost of my capability. It is a very exciting challenge, but I have played with a lot of players who played in IPL sides and hopefully I can learn from them and their experience and try and be the best (captain) that I can,” the senior off-spinner said.

“It is as good as being in a corporate environment where you are supposed to deliver and people are looking towards you to deliver results. It is going to be a little pressure oriented in that scenario but it is also going to be exciting and that is where it comes. So if you can produce results there is nothing like that, but if you can’t then you have to learn and move forward.”