Sanjay Bangar praises Ashwin for ‘brilliant’ batting skills

Sanjay Bangar, the batting coach of the Indian team has heaped praise on Indian all-rounder Ravichandran Ashwin after the end of the first day’s play at the Darren Sammy Stadium in St. Lucia. Ashwin spared India of their blushes when he smashed an unbeaten 75 to ensure that the Indians had indeed reached a point of safety. Moreover, the situation that he did it in proves that Ashwin is indeed one of those players who can hold a bat and bat his team out of trouble.

Bangar also went on to add that Ashwin was one of those players who showed great potential with the bat, only not to be able to bat at that position previously. However, now, Ashwin has a century and a half-century which could potentially turn into yet another Test ton.

“My role is not different from any other roles and I try to prepare them as well as possible. I try to keep them in a good head-space and make sure that they are as close to batting as their techniques allow them to. So that is a very small role that I play. And it is brilliant, it is just his third innings at No. 6 and he has never batted at six before the start of this series. So that’s an added plus for the team.

“Somebody we knew had a great potential with the bat but never did so at six, and having the knowledge that he is someone who started off as a top order batsman at the start of his career and contributed immensely for his state team as well. So it gives us options and already if you see the type of contribution the lower order is making it puts us in a confidence position whenever the team finds itself in a tight corner,” Bangar added.

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Speaking about the impact made by Wriddhiman Saha, Bangar said, “We are not looking at personal landmarks but what we see is that the contribution a player makes, not necessarily a fifty or a hundred, but even if it is a vital 40 which he got in both the Test matches that he played as also the contributions he has been making in the lower order in the Sri Lanka series and South Africa series.

“So it is not related to personal milestones or landmarks but contributions that are really helpful to the team’s cause are really valued. And Saha has been a fabulous team player and is willing to do anything required of him and time and again he has consistently proved that he is a good enough player to contribute consistently,” Bangar said.

Finally, speaking about the selection conundrum the Indians were under, Bangar said that it was one of the most difficult calls to make.“Vijay was available for selection and it was the management’s call to stick to Shikhar Dhawan because KL (Rahul) had a phenomenal game in the last match where he scored 150 and the team management felt that Shikhar had also done enough to keep his place in the team having scored a good 87 and then giving us the start in the first innings and negotiating the new ball in a partnership of 90 runs. So that was what went behind Murali Vijay not being able to break into the eleven here.”

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