Premier Indian spinner in the longest format, Ravichandran Ashwin has been out of the Indian limited-overs set-up since the series against West Indies back in 2017. Despite his impressive returns in the Indian Premier League (IPL) he hasn’t quite managed to break his way into the national side. With the Indian spinners going for plenty during the limited-overs series against England, many pundits have expressed their views of bringing back Ashwin in the scheme of things for limited-overs cricket.
Ashwin had a great time with the ball during the tour Down-Under where he picked 12 wickets in 3 matches. His wicket tally of 32 in 4 matches against England at home paved way for a 3-1 series victory. However, his consistent performances in Tests weren’t enough to force his way back into the limited-overs team.
Ashwin started off his IPL 14 campaign in a disappointing fashion. He ended up conceding 47 runs in 4 overs besides bagging a solitary wicket. Meanwhile, former Indian batsman turned commentator, Sanjay Manjrekar tried to break down as to why Ashwin was having a tough time in white-ball cricket.
"For Amit Mishra, there isn't much change in how he bowls in Test and T20 cricket. He sticks to his strength and his intent is to get the ball to turn. Ashwin doesn't bowl the off-spinner. He hardly bowls the off-spinner in white-ball cricket," Manjrekar said.
"In Test matches, that's his main delivery. In white-ball cricket, there's a lot of other stuff, the pause and the round-arm delivery and stuff like that which I don't really like too much," he added.
"I think Ashwin when he gets into this white-ball circle, he's only thinking about not getting hit and he thinks the only way to escape punishment is to have all these kinds of variations and he goes away from his main strength which is him being this wonderful off-spinner.
"So in return, you don't get much return off the pitch because he's not bowling any turning deliveries," Manjrekar added.
"It wasn't a case of Ashwin bowling badly. I think both Raina and Moeen played some superb shots that put him off his length, they hit the good balls for sixes.
"But this is the thing with Ashwin that we saw in the first game... a lot of people believe that he should be part of the white-ball format for India but the Ashwin that you see in Test matches is not who you see in white-ball cricket," Manjrekar concluded.
With the Indian spin department coming under a bit of stick in the last few months, it will be interesting to see whether he is brought back to the Indian squad ahead of the T20 World Cup. While wrists spinners Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav have leaked runs, Ashwin’s inclusion might solve a few problems lingering in the mind of Kohli and Co.