Following a remarkable performance with the ball in India’s first Test against West Indies, Ravichandran Ashwin provided insights into his strategic approach and the rationale behind his deliveries.
Remarkably, Ashwin concluded the first Test with exceptional figures of 12/131, marking his best performance away from home, which gave India a massive win by an innings and 141 runs.
During a conversation with commentators Ian Bishop and Samuel Badree following the match, Ashwin shared his thought process while executing his bowling tactics.
“I’m thinking constantly like a batter when I’m bowling. (For) the first few overs, I’m settling into a nice rhythm, I’m looking for different angles, trying to see whether my round-arm ball spins or the up-and-over spins or the flatter trajectory spins. I try and gauge the pitch, I try and gauge the right pace to be bowling with, and then I’m looking at the batter,” Ashwin said as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.
To highlight that, Ashwin explained how he worked out West Indies captain and opening batter Kraigg Brathwaite.
“That’s the next phase for me – where is the head moving, where is he looking to score those runs, is he falling over, is his front leg coming over? Those are the things I’m looking at. Today, when I was bowling at Kraigg Brathwaite – it was something I was working on in the first innings as well – I felt like when the round-arm action was coming in, he was losing his head,” Ashwin added.
When Ashwin referred to “losing his head,” he was alluding to the fact that on the delivery that led to Braithwaite’s dismissal, the batter’s head was leaning excessively towards the off side as the ball landed on a line near the middle stump. This positional imbalance restricted the batter’s available choices.
