Ashwin slams ‘experts’ on advice he gets

Vinayak Padmadeo

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 23

Ravichandran Ashwin was not in a foul mood. But he sure was angry. Perhaps the sudden collapse and defeat of his India A side in the Deodhar Trophy was the trigger. Chasing 262 for victory against India B, India A were reduced to 87/5 before Ashwin (54) and skipper Dinesh Karthik (99) revived the innings with a 123-run partnership. However, Ashwin was stumped with the team score at 210, and India A were bowled out with the addition of only eight more runs, losing by 43 runs.

After the match, Ashwin’s anger spilled out, and experts and former greats were caught in the crossfire. A simple question on whether he agreed with the ‘experts’ on bowling a lot of his stock delivery in Test matches got him going.

“It is all based on success. If you are successful then they will say it is alright, if not then you are always going to have opinions,” Ashwin said, only warming up. “For better part of the first 150 wickets that I picked, people kept on saying I am trying variations. All the great and big people kept on saying the same thing when I knew I wasn’t doing it. These are all opinions that are made and created by people for which I have to keep giving answers to. I don’t have the time anymore. I just want to enjoy the game.”

Sydney blow up

Asked if he should be rated higher as a player than he is, Ashwin brought up the criticism he faced during the 2015 Sydney Test match against Australia. Ashwin had figures of 1/142 in 47 overs and 4/105 in 19 overs in the two innings of that drawn match.

“When I started bowling in Sydney… For me it was all about going after wickets and all I had heard from the experts was that a bowler should go for wickets. But once I did that they flipped and said I should be bowling tight and giving a break to the fast bowlers,” Ashwin said. “So this eventually is the wall that I have hit all along. For me... the battle is within myself and not to keep on looking at people to what they are saying. Unfortunately India is made that way but I have learned all the way.”

The new carom ball

Ashwin kept his variations in check in the nine overs he bowled today, but said he’s been working on new deliveries. “I have developed a couple of others balls. I don’t bowl the carom ball from the top, I bowl it from the underneath now so it is not giving a lot of trajectory to the batsmen but sits and grips a bit. I have developed a few other variations to go along with my off-break,” he added.

Brief scores:  India B 261/8 in 50 overs (Vihari 87*, Tiwary 52; Ashwin 2/39); India A 218 all out in 46.4 overs (Karthik 99, Ashwin 54; Markande 4/48, Nadeem 3/32) India B beat India A by 43 runs.