England vs India 2018: Simplifying my action was very important, says Ravichandran Ashwin

Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has opened up about the changes he has brought to his bowling which helped him start the first Test of the five-match series against England with aplomb. Ashwin was the pick of the Indian bowlers (25-7-60-4) and forced England into a collapse (216/3 to 283/9) in the last session of the day.

The Tamil Nadu off-spinner started the day on the front foot by dismissing former English skipper Alastair Cook with a perfect off-spinner which pitched on Cook's leg stump and spun to hit the top of his off. Though Ashwin didn't get a wicket in the second session as Root and Bairstow asserted their authority, he maintained his composure and bowled to a plan.

The 31-year-old was rewarded for his consistency as he got two important wickets, that of Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes before dismissing Stuart Broad later in the day. Talking to bowling coach Bharat Arun in a video uploaded by bcci.tv, Ashwin opened up on how he has changed his approach in the last year to suit English conditions.

"When I came here for County cricket last year, the one thing I realise was the speed at which spinners had to bowl here. Wickets are extremely slow, even on the first day. Even if there is bounce, if you don't get the pace right, the batsman will get a lot of time to play the same ball on the front and on the backfoot. This is something I realised very quickly."

"Even in the last 12-18 months I spend a lot of time playing club cricket. I was working on simplifying my actions a bit and make sure I can get more body into the ball, try and create something in the air and it worked really well," he said.

Bharat Arun then revealed that Ashwin has been working on "taking the wicket out of the equation and creating something in the air" for over a year and that is paying dividends now. The off-spinner then explained how difficult the process has been for him.

"We have always spoken about taking the wicket out of the equation and specially with how good the wickets are, the modern day batsman actually enjoy playing in this wicket. I think to a larger extent that particular thing of doing something in the air is something I consciously worked on," he said.

"But what happens when you are trying to do that something in the air is that the body sometimes gives up, you are touch short or touch fuller. So in one of those pursuits, I thought simplifying my action was important.

"Because I went through a very good phase of bowling with that particular action and hence a lot of bad habits had crept in with my arms coming in, so those are the things I had to really work on against my own will and try and tell myself that I had to work on my action again."