R Ashwin, who is 37 years old and in his maiden complete season in the Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL), is becoming a more versatile batsman. His ability to locate boundaries on the ground has always been a strength of the Rajasthan Royals, who use it to put him up the order in the IPL to give their finishers a better point of entry. However, Ashwin has been practicing shooting boundary shots square of the wicket in the TNPL this year, and it’s paying off.
With several reverse sweeps, Ashwin destroyed left-arm fingerspinners R Sai Kishore and S Ajith Ram in the Qualifier 2 match on Friday at Chepauk against Idream Tiruppur Tamizhans. With a strike rate of above 300, he scored 28 off nine balls, demonstrating his extreme severity against Sai Kishore. Ashwin has amassed 200 runs at a strike rate of 166.66 in eight innings this TNPL, five of which have come at the top or No. 3 position for the Dindigul Dragons.
He added, “Look, everything is work in progress, right?,” the night before the Lyca Kovai Kings of Shahrukh Khan faced off in the TNPL final in Chennai. Even Shahrukh Khan is available for an interview. How does he strike the ball through the off side and leg side? How does he achieve power hitting? It all comes down to repetitions, awareness of angles, and knowledge of triggers.
“Since I know I can drive the ball down the ground and utilize my feet, I felt like I wanted to broaden my game and perspectives square of the wicket in the past IPL. I have to question myself if I want to look into other choices. Thus, if I can pose that question and discover the answer, it opens up new possibilities for me to investigate and maintain my interest in the game.”
P Vignesh, the rookie left-arm fingerspinner for Dindigul, was removed from India’s Under-19 World Cup squad earlier this year, but he has impressed especially with his precision and control in the TNPL. He finished with 3 for 8 versus Tiruppur in Qualifier 2, winning Player of the Match. Similar to Vignesh, Mohamed Ali, an all-rounder from Tiruppur who bowls off spin, was left out of India’s Under-19 World Cup team but has established himself in the TNPL. Ashwin has exhorted the upcoming crop of cricket players to accept failure and never stop improving.
“First off, it’s not the end of the world, in my opinion, to miss the Under-19 cut. “I really urge people to look at this game as a part of life, considering how fragile our next generation can be,” Ashwin said. “Success and failure are quite common, and it is only by failures that individuals grow.
I am familiar with P Vignesh; he has been visiting the Indian team nets, and it seems to me that he is getting better every day. And these individuals get the chance to express themselves and improve their game via this kind of competition. I sincerely hope that they will be prepared to address the questions that will be posed and to continuously extend it.”
Shahrukh: GT helped improve
Shahrukh has frequently had trouble against spin, particularly early in his innings. However, he has been working on a technical adjustment that he feels would make him a more well-rounded batter: a trigger movement where he thrusts his weight forward.
“When I was with the Gujarat Titans, we had a camp for about a couple of months there, so I started working a lot on my spin game because they wanted me to bat up the order,” Shahrukh said. “And when you bat up the order, opposing teams would undoubtedly put in spin when I came out to bat, which is clearly concerning for a batter like myself who has issues about spin bowling.
“Their assistance was crucial in helping me enhance my spin technique. It’s really evident now that I’m front pressing [in the TNPL], and it’s helped me score both off the front and back feet.”
Shahrukh has an overall IPL strike rate of 161.11 against speed, but it drops dramatically to 112 against spin. However, he was able to increase his strike rate against spin to 168.75 in the IPL 2024 while keeping it at a good level against speed. Additionally, Shahrukh faced left-arm spinner Vignesh and mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy during Kovai’s league phase match against Dindigul at Tirunelveli. He went on to score an undefeated 51 off 25 balls.
Following their defeat to Dindigul, Shahrukh has urged his side to play their “best cricket” in an attempt to complete a treble in the TNPL.
“I’m not very knowledgeable with the law of averages. We view it as simply another game,” stated Shahrukh. “All of these things on social media exist, but we’re not focused on them. Examples include the law of averages and the hat-trick [of championships]. Only twice in the eight games we’ve played have we performed up to our collective standards.
“I hope we strive to bring that out in this game as well. We still haven’t played our greatest cricket this year, in my opinion, and we’ll work to change that.”
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