To start with, let me come straight to the point — Ravichandran Ashwin is not being rested or anything, he is currently out of favour of India’s limited-overs’ set-up. In Test matches, he may be one of the top five bowlers in the world right now, but when it comes to white-ball cricket, the Chennai boy is not being considered for selection, despite being the current No. 1 off-spinner in India.
Since the defeat in the Champion’s Trophy final last year, the Indian think-tank has adopted the strategy of focusing largely on wrist-spinners in white-ball cricket. In the limited-overs series in West Indies right after the Champions’ Trophy, the Indian team picked Kuldeep Yadav along with Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. It was during that tour when Ashwin played his last ODI and T20I.
Meanwhile, the 'rest' has extended so far that both Ashwin and Jadeja are not even featuring in the ODI and T2OI squads for the limited-overs leg of the ongoing South Africa tour. Their replacements – Kuldeep and Yuzvendra Chahal- have done exceedingly well, so much so that Virat Kohli has made up his mind that wrist spin is the way forward in white-ball cricket.
Well, clearly it is time for the survival of the fittest and Ashwin knows that. So, here comes Ravichandran Ashwin 2.0 — the leg-spinner.
For Ashwin, it is quite clear that he has to up his game somehow to get back in the reckoning and save his limited-overs career. Most importantly, there is the World Cup scheduled next year and Ashwin wants to keep himself in the frame of schemes of the selectors. That’s why these days he is learning the art of wrist-spin. He wants to become a bowler who has an equal amount of mastery over his finger spin, as well as wrist-spin.
An Anil Kumble like