Former Indian batting coach Sanjay Bangar has revealed that his biggest challenge with Ravichandran Ashwin was that he came into every series with different thinking.
Ashwin is well known to put a lot of thought into his bowling as well as his batting and he has grown in stature over the years due to the same.
Ashwin is known to bowl with a lot of guile and makes great use of his variations to get the best out of himself. Bangar revealed that he had a lot of conversations with Ashwin and he always wanted to improve his batting.
Ashwin has scalped 436 wickets in 85 Test matches at an average of 24.27 but he has also delivered the goods with the bat whenever the team has needed it. The right-hander has scored 2905 runs while batting down the order and he has also scored five Test centuries.
Sanjay Bangar said on Star Sports, “He continuously thinks about his bowling. Mostly my discussions with him have not been about bowling but about batting. My biggest challenge with R Ashwin was that he came into every series with a different thinking or doing something different and then to get him back to his former self.”
“If we see the last two years, there was a time in between when he tried to bowl a lot with a front-on action, he had to use his body a lot more that time but here he was bowling absolutely side-on, the loading position was good, the way he started his career.”
Bangar, who has worked closely with Ashwin, added that the off-spinner’s stock delivery has yielded him maximum success.
“He relied more on his stock delivery and took the maximum wickets with that, he didn’t use the carrom ball or leg-spin much in this Test match. The more he relies on his conventional stock ball, he becomes all the more dangerous and causes a lot of problems for the batters.”
“I feel if he continues bowling like this, it will be very difficult to bat against him and to score runs off his bowling.”
Ashwin will look to continue his good show in the upcoming matches. The second Test match against Sri Lanka will be played in Bengaluru from Saturday.
