Ravichandran Ashwin aims to be the best bowler in the world

Ashwin feels he has matured as a cricketer

In a span of just about five years, Indian star spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has turned into the most important man for India in all three formats of the game. The 29-year old from Chennai is the fastest Indian to reach the 50 and 100 wickets mark in Tests.

Ashwin has received applause from everywhere for his tremendous bowling performance over the years, but all that fame and recognition hasn’t deterred the spinner from concentrating on his game. He says his sole aim is to keep performing for India and take wickets at every single opportunity.

The Indian offie said that over a period of time, he has matured as a cricketer. “I am confident and I am a little more rounded in terms of the knowledge I have than what I had before. The amount of knowledge and the amount of confidence and the grip that I have over my skill now is something that is definitely a marked difference from what I had some years ago,” Ashwin told Wisden India.

About his perception towards his game, Ashwin says he likes analyzing and thinking about cricket all the time. “This is how I am. I like to play cricket. I like to think about cricket all the time. A scientist thinks about what he does all the time. Why should I be any different? I am a cricketer. He is a scientist, he does his job. I am a cricketer, I should be thinking about cricket. I shouldn’t be thinking about anything else. And the game gives me a lot, I need to give the game back, whatever it is. If I don’t leave any stone unturned, I have given myself the best chance to succeed. This is how I am made,” he told candidly.

The spinner says sometimes he does like to alter his regular bowling action, with little effect, whenever he goes for runs.

“If somebody hit me, I used to run in and put more revolutions on the ball, try and get them out. But there was no thinking because whenever I started putting more revs, I started putting more overspin on the ball. On some wickets, over-spin works and, on some wickets, it doesn’t. It’s about using the over-spin right,” he felt.

The in-form bowler confessed that he likes bowling long spells in Test cricket, which gives him an opportunity to snarl more wickets. “I love bowling long spells. I hate the fact that the ball is taken away from my hand at times. Five wickets is not something that I set as a benchmark, I want to keep going – six, seven, eight. Because I just love picking up wickets”, he said.

He continued: “When you are bowling quality stuff, the amount of longer spells that you bowl can come down a wee bit. At this moment, I am fitter than what I used to be. That is having a directly proportional relation to the way I am bowling. I would ideally like a longer spell because there have been times when I have bowled 15 overs in a session, come back and wanted to bowl again.”

During Kumar Sangakkara’s farewell Test, Ashwin produced a beauty to get rid of the legendary Sri Lankan batsman. Ravi Shastri even went on to describe the ball as ‘the finest’ delivery he had seen from Ashwin, but Ashwin has his own list of favourite dismissals, which doesn’t even feature Sangakkara’s dismissal.

The wickets of Hashim Amla in the T20 World Cup, Glenn Maxwell at the World Cup semi-final, Jonathan Trott’s stumping in the Champions Trophy final and his 50th Test wicket in the form of Nick Compton, are some of his favourites.