Ravichandran Ashwin, in a local match in Chennai on Thursday, got two wickets bowling mostly leg-spin, reported The Times of India.
Ashwin, playing for Jolly Rovers, got rid of Grand Slam’s N Jagadeesan and Bharghav Merai and finished with bowling figures of 9-0-47-2. Most of his deliveries were variants of leg-spin.
“I knew Ashwin was working on leg spin. He was discussing about it during the Ranji nets. He did bowl the odd leggie against Andhra and Mumbai. I had kept wickets for him. But his accuracy is excellent,” Jagadeesan told The Times of India.
“He bowled googlies and executed the faster one with good control. As a batsman, you can’t get away from him. His height is an advantage and he did generate bounce,” said Jagadeesan.
Ashwin first experimented with leg-spin while playing under-arm cricket in Chennai and has tried it during several international matches.
“I can spin the legbreak a mile,” he’d told Wisden India in an interview last year. “But when I tried it, a lot of people discouraged me saying it was very difficult. They said that I batted anyway, so why not bowl off-spin? So I started, and a lot of people were impressed.”
With India set to embark for South Africa for a two-month tour, comprising three Test, six ODIs and three T20Is, Ashwin seems to be preparing to bowl on conditions that hardly assist spinners.
In the only Test he’s played in the country (in Johannesburg, 2013) he returned with match figures of 42-5-108-0. He was criticized for failing to get a wicket in the second innings that helped South Africa get away with a draw after being set a difficult target.