Trinidad, June 6: India World Cup winning team member and offspinner Ravichandran Ashwin believes that the forthcoming five-match ODI series against the West Indies is going to be challenging for the bowlers. Ashwin said that the wickets in the Caribbean predominantly favour the batsmen and the bowlers will find it difficult to extract much help from the slow tracks.
Excerpts from an exclusive media interaction:
On his form
Form is something which is temporary and class is permanent. That’s what people say. But with regard to form, form is something which you will love to take along with travel bags and suitcases. I am very happy to have come to [the] Caribbean with good form. Form is going to give you confidence and coming into a challenging tour like this, [one] always wants to be fruitful.
On the forthcoming ODI series
It’s going to be a big challenge because the wickets here are predominately very good for batting and they are going to be a little slow, not much help for the bowlers. It’s going to be a lot of challenge. Hope I can mix a lot of fun with it and just enjoy it.
On the carom ball that he bowls
It’s just an innovation, to try and get the ball to go the other way. I am not very good at bowling the ‘doosra’. I cannot really comprehend how it works or in a straight-arm action which I have which is quite high. It’s quite tough to really to get the ‘doosra’ going at any pace so I was working on these balls. I used to play a lot of gully cricket, [which] meant that I knew exactly how this ball works and it just took a little bit of time to incorporate it with a harder cricket ball. I am happy it’s working for me.
On how hard he works on his batting now given that he started his career as a batsman
I do work very hard on my batting. T20 cricket is very different from One-day cricket. T20 cricket is not something predominantly for batsmen who bat at No. 8 or No. 9 or No. 7. I bat at No. 8 for India but I have been doing a good job. [I] actually have a decent record with the bat for Indian team. I just batted thrice and got a decent number of runs at that particular situation. [I would] just like to add as much value to the team as possible and turn into an all-rounder later probably.
