New Delhi: Off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has revealed the demoralising effect he has had while bowling at former swashbuckling opener Virender Sehwag.
Talking in a chat show ‘What the Duck 2’, Ashwin recalled his tryst with Sehwag at a net session a few years ago.
“Sehwag was never complicated. He had a demoralizing effect on me actually,” Ashwin said.
“There was an incident in Dambulla, where every ball that I bowled, first ball I bowled outside off stump, Sehwag cuts me. Next ball I bowled on off stump, he cuts me. Next ball I bowled on middle stump, he cuts me. The next ball I bowl on leg stump, he again cuts me. So I said ‘what the hell is happening’. So I just bowled a ball fuller, Sehwag stepped out and slugged me out for a six,” Ashwin recalled.
Ashwin, who was struggling then to earn a spot in the Indian team, was clueless what to do. “I was also bowling to Sachin Tendulkar, but I never struggled against the maestro. So being the inquisitive person that I am, I went to Sehwag and asked him ‘so what should I do to improve’. If I had asked Sachin, he would have given me some tips. If it was MS (Dhoni), he would have given me a perspective,” informed Ashwin.
“Viru said ‘You know what, I don’t think off-spinners are bowlers. They do not trouble me at all. I just find it easy smashing them’. I said ‘Sir you are cutting me’ on all deliveries. He said, ‘Yeah, I hit off-spinners against the spin on the off-side and for left-arm spinners, I will hit against the spin on the leg-side. I said, ‘okay, fine’,” Ashwin recounted.
“The next day I tried something in the nets he again started hitting me in different zones. He was actually treating me like a road-rag. Like how I would treat a 10-year-old kid, if I was batting against him,” he added.
Ashwin then informed that the best way to get Sehwag out was to bowl him ‘rubbish’ balls. “Yes, he is always expecting good deliveries… so when you bowl the rubbish ball, he is surprised and that is the way I got him out a few times in the IPL,” Ashwin said.
PTI