IPL 2016: Ajit Agarkar points out reasons behind Ravichandran Ashwin's lack of overs

Has MS Dhoni lost his faith in his premier offspinner Ravichandran Ashwin? Well, the question has been doing the rounds since the ICC T20 World Cup 2016 and it seems there is no end to that as in the IPL 2016 too, the offie has not been given his full quota of overs in most of the games.

To make matters worse, Ashwin bowled just a single over in Pune’s last game against Royal Challengers Bangalore which Pune lost by 7 wickets.

However, former Indian pacer Ajit Agarkar has a different take on the Dhoni-Ashwin issue. According to him, it is more about the match conditions and situations than anything else.

Agarkar said, “At times it may seem odd but I don't think it is due to any lack of faith. When Pune came to Mumbai (to take on Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede Stadium last month), it was a seamers' wicket and Ashwin's bowling was not needed."

Ashwin so far has bowled just 59 overs in his last 19 T20s and has completed his four-over quota on just nine occasions. The statistics look rather bizarre for someone who finished 2015 as the No. 1 ranked Test bowler and the top-ranked Test allrounder.

He even started the T20 season with a bang as he picked up 4 for 8 against Sri Lanka in a bilateral T20I series and his spell became the best bowling figures for India in T20Is. But after that, things have drastically changed for the talented off-spinner.

Agarkar also pointed out, "You have to remember that when the IPL games were played in spin-friendly conditions in Chennai, he used to open the bowling. The conditions matter." Ashwin was one of the trusted warriors of MS Dhoni when they used to play for the Chennai Super Kings and Dhoni himself admitted that the tweaker had bailed him out of trouble on many occasions.

But nowadays India’s limited overs skipper seems a bit reluctant to bowl Ashwin. Even in the all-important T20 world cup semi-final against the West Indies, Ashwin bowled just two overs and it raised quite a few eyebrows.

After the match, Dhoni cited the dew factor as a reason for Ashwin not bowling his full quota of overs. But the spinner was annoyed when asked about it at the pre-match media conference before the IPL encounter between the Rising Pune Supergiants and Mumbai Indians and lambasted the journalist who had asked the question whether he found it difficult to bowl with the wet ball.

Rising Pune Supergiants leg-spinner Adam Zampa, however, had a different take on it. After the RCB game, when he was asked about Ashwin’s underutilisation, he said, "I'm guessing it's because two right-handers mostly in the whole time, spinning in. He got the opportunity with the left-hander in, but they didn't have too many left-handers. Limited opportunity for him."

Ashwin, so far, has bowled 30 overs in the 10 matches played. In these games, he has picked up only 3 wickets at an economy of 7.20. It will be interesting to see whether Dhoni continues the trend of not giving the full quota of overs to his once trusted warrior in the upcoming games.