Ravichandran Ashwin credits Sanjay Bangar and VVS Laxman for his good batting performance in the West Indies

R Ashwin

Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has credited batting coach Sanjay Bangar and his coach at Chemplast, Jayakumar for his excellent showing with the willow in hand at the recently-concluded West Indies vs India four-match Test series.

Speaking about the alterations he made, the 29-year-old said that he made adjustments to his batting stance, based on the advice of Bangar, who suggested he open up a bit more. He also credited for former India batsman VVS Laxman, who told 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 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.

“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.

For the whole of the series, Ashwin batted at the number six slot and speaking about that decision, he revealed that he hadn’t set himself a number for himself and went back to the 2014 New Zealand tour, where he felt he was batting well, but couldn’t carry on because of a tennis elbow.

“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.

“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.

England played well in 2012: Ashwin

Speaking about the England series that succeeds the New Zealand one, Ashwin complemented the Alastair Cook-led side for the showing in 2012 and added that while he would not want to look back at that series too much, he will look to take the learnings and move forward.

“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.

Speaking about his decision to try leg-spin during the T20I series against the West Indies last year, he said that the format is such that it demands multi-dimensional cricketers and expected more cricketers to take that route in the future.

“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. 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.