Melbourne: Ravichandran Ashwin has found the going tough with the ball in the ICC Men’s World Twenty20 in Australia.
The off spinner has taken a mere three wickets at 35.33 apiece , sending down 78 balls in four matche and conceding 106 runs.
But he has been doing the right things with the bat. He hit the winning shot against Pakistan and struck a 6 and 4 in the last over against Bangladesh. His unbeaten 13 took India’s tally to 184 in a Group 2 match at the Adelaide Oval.
Ashwin has played 63 Twenty20 internationals in which he has accumulated 1623 runs.The ongoing tournament in Australa is his fifth; he has played in the 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018 competitions and is part of the ongoing tournament in Australia. He took 5 wickets in Colombo , 11 in Mirpur,four in India, six in the UAE before his fifth here.
Ashwin fancies himself as a batsman and he has five Test centuries. But in the tournament here played in the Twenty20 format he has made timely hits. Against Bangladesh at the Adelaide Oval on Wednesday he hit a 6 and 4 in the last over to enable India set a target that demanded Bangladesh to score at 9 plus an ever.
It has been difficult for the slow bowlers to play a big part in their team’s success. The top wicket takers are leg spinners Wanindu Hasaranga (Sri Lanka) and Shadab Khan (Pakistan) with six wickets each. The spinners have bowled 1285 balls and accounted for 67 wickets at 23.45, with the finger spinners taking 41 at 26.37. The right hand off spinners have taken 23 at 23.65. They are struggling to take wickets,and their economy rate is 7.73.
Fourteen players have bowled off spin in the tournament so far; their captains have shown tremendous faith in their ability on the big grounds of Australia. So has Rohit Sharma on Ashwin; his two big blows against Bangladesh turned out to be valuable. It turned out to be match winning blows.