Sanjay Bangar and VVS Laxman deserves the credit: Ravichandran Ashwin

World no.1 all-rounder in Test cricket, Ravichandran Ashwin had a great series in West Indies, which India won 2-0. Despite picking up wickets, he was phenomenal with the bat in hand as he trashed 2 centuries in the series. He credited Sanjay Bangar and VVS Laxman apart from his coach at Chemplast, Jayakumar for all his success.

The 29-year-old said that Bangar asked him to change his batting stance who suggested to open up a bit more. Whereas VVS Laxman suggested him to rely on the backfoot shots for runs.

“For starters, my stance was side-on and I had to open up. I quite enjoyed being side-on because you could play late and play towards square. But I had to change because I was playing one too many shots outside the off-stump. I had to open it up to play straighter. Before leaving, I spoke to V.V.S. Laxman who made runs in the last tour in 2011.”

“I think he is a bit of a hands player like me. He was telling me drives weren’t fetching him runs and he had to rely on late cuts and flicks. We had a long chat and I played a lot of percentage cricket,” said Ashwin.

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He said that a lot of credit should go to Bangar, who has been working on his game for the last 10 months. “It was actually suggested by Sanjay Bangar and Jay seconded. I have to give a lot of credit to Sanjay because he has been the one who has been working on my game for the past eight to ten months. I worked with Jay for eight to ten days before I left. Both of them deserve a lot of credit,” he told in an interview to the Hindu.

Ashwin batted at no.6, the whole series and he believe that it helped him take his time and settle and play it innings-by-innings. “Ravi Shastri has maintained I tend to be a bit loose batting at eight but what people don’t realise is at eight, I have to play loose shots to score runs. I wanted to bat sessions and it has not been easy because I have not batted up the order since my under-19 days. I have worked on it earnestly and put my mind over matter.”

He said that he had a good time with the bat in the series against New Zealand in 2014, but couldn’t carry on because of a tennis elbow. “I haven’t really set myself a number. [But] I definitely believed I was capable of batting higher. I was batting really well in NZ in the ODIs but after that, I lost my way due to the tennis elbow. I had to doubly work hard to get going again. This time, I worked hard without expecting results, not showing disappointment. It has now yielded results,” he added.

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England played good cricket in 2012 series:

Speaking about the England series in 2012, he admitted that the Alastair Cook-led side played a good brand of cricket but he doesn’t want to look back into the series as he considers those as his inexperienced days and only wants to take the learnings from the series and move on.

“You’ll have to agree that some teams do come and play good cricket. They played good cricket. So, yes, a lot of people could’ve ideally made me the villain for that series as well but I batted really well in that series to look back. I don’t think I was dismissed a whole lot of times. I made a couple of 90s, a 50, and all that. I did get about 13-14 wickets. Those were inexperienced days. I mean, I’ll try and not look back at that series and take anything forward, but I will try and take the learnings from that series and go ahead,” he said.

“People would want you to bowl medium pace as well”:

In the first T20I match against the West Indies, Ashwin was prominently bowling leg-spinners on the flat deck at Florida to make the batsmen hit against the spin. He said that it is how cricket is going to be cricket in the future, termed the ‘multi-dimensional’ Ashwin.

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“I surely think that is how it is going to be. I have no doubts about it. People might tend to disagree with me but that’s where the game is headed. More often than not whenever I’ve called something, it’s happened in the future. So, people have always vilified me for that but trust me that’s how the game is going to be,” he said.

“See, when T20 started people said they are looking for multi-dimensional cricketers. I’m telling you, this also is going to be a part of the multi-dimension. You want to be a bowler, you have to do it. There will be a time when people would want you to bowl medium pace as well,” he concluded.