Freed by bats, offie Ashwin flies in World Cup

Rohit Mahajan in Perth

The United Arab Emirates batsmen were comically inept against India, weren’t they? Didn’t smash the loose ball, struggled with the normal balls, didn’t even see the good balls. Who do you blame for this lack of excellence, then? Not the bunch of amateurs from UAE, most of them temporary residents there, players of UAE without passports of UAE.

You certainly can’t blame Ravichandran Aswhin, their chief tormentor, who bowled 44 dot balls in 10 overs against them. He got four wickets, giving away only 25 runs.

Never before in his career had he taken four wickets in an ODI — UAE but proved easy meat for him. But the inexperience of the UAE batsmen is no reason to deny Ashwin praise. And his bowling against UAE wasn’t a flash in the pan. He bowled very effectively against the two strong powers in India’s group, Pakistan and South Africa, too. In those games, it helped that the Indian batsmen had put up scores over 300. That freed Ashwin to present the full range of his bowling. The new rules force the bowlers to take wickets — you just can’t restrict the flow of runs. That’s so because for a large part of the innings, only four fielders are allowed outside the inner circle. “It’s very difficult to bowl with only four players allowed outside, especially when the batsmen are coming at you. That’s why we’re seeing such high scores,” says Brad Hogg, the veteran Australian spinner. “I think that having only four out is harder on the spinners than the other bowlers.”

For the spinners, it’s tough to bowl on Australian tracks — over the last eight years, the average of spinners bowling in Australia is 45 in Tests. In ODIs, Ashwin himself averages 40.70 in Australia and New Zealand — and that’s after picking up eight wickets in the last three ODIs in this World Cup.

Ashwin has been able to attack in his attempt to get the wickets. India’s batsmen made it possible by giving him the runs to defend; he himself has gone the whole hog — he has flighted the ball, which enabled his off-spinner to turn more. He possesses a large variety of deliveries, and he’s used them with care and thought and proper planning. He’s even bowled away-swinging deliveries. The larger grounds of Australia, with boundaries not very easy to clear, have given him the confidence. “You have to change your bowling according to the wicket… You have to find the right length and the right trajectory to bowl, and I felt Ash did that really well,” his captain MS Dhoni says. “He did use his faster one… Also, he was quite successful to get a bit of swing on it, and that was the reason he got a couple of wickets out of those particular deliveries.”

Dhoni says that the best part was that Ashwin’s line and length were superb.

Hogg was impressed by the way the Indians have adapted to the challenge of the World Cup after three very ordinary months in the country. “In the group stage, you’ve got to test a few things, to try and get used to these conditions,” says Hogg. “What’s gonna work? Where is the batsman going to target me? How can I counteract that by bowling in a different line or length, or having a different field? That’s where India have worked really well over the two months… They realised that things weren’t working, they’ve changed their plans quickly and now they’re starting to be a force in the World Cup.”

The last time an India spinner did better than Ashwin in Australia was way back in 1991 — when Ravi Shastri took 5/15, the only time a spinner has taken five wickets in an innings at the WACA ground. Ashwin says that the breeze — Dr Freemantle, which traditionally has added swing to the bowling at WACA — helped him. “My wrist is getting into a good position, and that helps with the arm ball, the breeze helped as well,” he says.

Ashwin says that playing the big teams early, getting the big games out of the way with impressive wins, was tremendous. “It was good to play the big teams initially, now we're on a roll,” he says.

Poor UAE got rolled over yesterday, and Dhoni says that’s the way to do it. There can’t be any sympathy for anyone, even the innocent minors of world cricket.