Atreyo Mukhopadhyay
He has this habit of exceeding expectations. His father, a retired employee of the Southern Railways, used to be a medium-pacer playing in the third division of the Chennai league. He wanted his son to do better and play in the first division. Little did he know that his boy would go on to become one of Indian cricket’s all-time greats and of the best spinners the world has ever seen.
Ravichandran Ashwin has kept raising the bar and scripting surprises. He was Player of the Match for Rajasthan Royals, when playing against Chennai Super Kings on Wednesday. Nothing unusual about that. He has got this accolade numerous times in his career. But, for the first time in the IPL, Ashwin won that award also for his performance with the bat.
He is an accomplished batter, as everybody knows. He has five Test centuries and 13 half-centuries, to go with his 474 wickets. He was an opener in his school days and performed that duty at junior levels. What we are seeing now is something new. In the IPL, Ashwin is being used as a batting weapon. He opened the innings against Punjab Kings, and came in at No. 5 against CSK, ahead of Shimron Hetmyer.
Going by the number of runs scored — a four-ball duck as opener, and a 22-ball 30 from No. 5 — he has done nothing sensational. Rather flat, one may say. But then again, there has to be a reason why Ashwin is being used a frontline batter in the IPL for the first time. This is a high-stakes competition where team owners are hell-bent on winning. So why is Ashwin being promoted as a batter in this format?
The reason is, he is also a batting analyst. He has discovered a few angles batters can create, by using his mind. Once they do that, they can play shots that are rare. For example, he moved towards the leg side to a full delivery outside off and played it to the left of point. The textbook says one must come forward and play the ball straighter. He thought something different could be done, and executed it to perfection. He reads the lines, field placements and positions himself in such a way that the shot he comes up with is unexpected for the bowlers. Ashwin is a deft user of the depth of the crease. He can go back and convert a full delivery into a shorter one. He is a brilliant thinker.
Some of these qualities were on show last season as well. The difference this time is, his team management has decided that it’s a risk worth taking to send him up the order, ahead of players who are in the team primarily for batting. Ashwin has not fully delivered in terms of runs scored, but he has rattled the opposition bowlers in short phases by outthinking them. Two sixes in succession over cow corner and then going back to a full one outside off illustrated this quickness of thought.
It comes from the mind. He holds an IT engineering degree from Chennai’s Anna University. He can devise methods that others may not have thought of. One reason he is such a successful and clever bowler is that he can think like a batter. He knows as well as any batter what the task entails. That’s why he also knows how to outfox them with a ball in his hand.
This IPL may or may not see more of Ashwin the batter, but one thing is certain. His franchise, captain, chief coach and batting coach have understood that he can be used as a floating batting resource. That’s some tale. He may not have the power game, but he surely has the intelligence to use his abilities to be a force with the bat in this form of the game. Maybe for those cameos rather than longer innings. Often, that’s precious enough in T20s and the IPL.