NEW DELHI - Former Test spinner Erapalli Prasanna is highly critical of Ravichandran Ashwin's performance for India while playing abroad, saying the Tamil Nadu tweaker "lacks deception" in his bowling. Ashwin, in his last five ODIs in South Africa and New Zealand, has taken only a single wicket bowling 46 overs for 271 runs. "It's simple. Ashwin lacks the required deception to trouble international batsmen.
Deception is a quality that should worry your opposition. Not only the batsman who is facing you should be worried but also the man padded up and due to come next should also be worried. The deliveries should work on his mind also," Prasanna said Jan. 24. The 73-year-old Prasanna, who had 189 wickets in 49 Test matches, also questioned Ashwin's tactics of stopping at the crease while bowling. "I am not very sure if you can call that variation. May be he is imagining that he is deceiving the batsman but does he realize that it is just a single delivery. Once the batsman reads it, he will play the delivery easily over after over," the veteran off spinner pointed out. Another aspect of Ashwin's bowling that Prasanna disliked was coming round the wicket to right-handed batsmen. "You need to be aggressive as a bowler. If Ashwin is coming round the wicket to a right-hander, then automatically you are removing leg before decision out of equation. Which means your mindset is negative. You are only trying to stop the flow of runs and not get wickets. That's not acceptable," he said. Prasanna did not mince words when he pointed out how Ashwin has only been successful on "spin-friendly" tracks in India. (PTI)
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