Murugan Ashwin grabbed the limelight when he was sold for a whopping 4.5 crores to Rising Pune Supergiants from a base price of Rs. 10 lakhs in this year’s IPL auction.
Murugan Ashwin’s teammate and star Indian spinner R Ashwin has said that the youngster has all the potential to excel at the highest level.
“He’s got all the tools, the most important thing for a spinner in the modern era is to spin the ball. Most of the spinners don’t do it in this era and I don’t blame them for it because of the format they play in,” R Ashwin told iplt20.com in an interview along with M Ashwin. “I’m sure getting hit in this format, getting hit in this in the tournament, getting his wickets, the whole learning curve is going to be important for him so I feel it’s a great platform for him.”
Murugan Ashwin was a net bowler with Chennai Super Kings last year. R Ashwin was impressed with M Ashwin even then and remembered how the CSK batsmen found it tough to pick his googlies.
“At CSK he bowled to all batsmen and all of them really struggled against him,” R Ashwin said. “They couldn’t pick his googly and couldn’t hit him out for a single six, so those are all positives to me. In fact we wanted to pick him last year itself but somewhere or the other they left him out.”
When asked about his sharp googly, M Ashwin said that he had not practiced a lot on his googlies.
“It [the googly] comes naturally to me because I am an open-chested bowler and it’s something I’ve had since childhood. I’ve never really worked on it,” he said. He also said that having a more experienced bowler like R Ashwin in the side has helped him understand how to bowl on different pitches: “He’s given me a few ideas on how to bowl on certain wickets and what to and what not do, and that’s what helps.”
M Ashwin did not make a memorable first-class debut for Tamil Nadu in 2012 as he did not get to bowl on debut in a match that was interrupted by rain, and was soon dropped. Interestingly he received the cap from R Ashwin on his debut.
“He had his first bowl for Tamil Nadu in the next game [after his debut] and I don’t think he went very well, after which he was dropped,” R Ashwin said of M Ashwin. “Different people perceive bowlers differently and it’s very difficult to spot bowlers, but he looked like someone who has good revs. He spins the ball a mile – both inwards and outwards – that is a trait that is inborn and you have to look for such traits.”
R Ashwin is not having a very good IPL as per his standards and when asked about this the spinner said that he still did not know what exactly his role was and that he was still finding his footing.
“The role I’m playing at Supergiants is pretty different and it’s pretty unique. We’re still gelling into the team and I’m still finding my own feet in this team because I don’t know what role I’m exactly playing so I’m just feeling into it. It’s common when a franchise starts off new,” he said. “I have gone out bowling my legspin a lot, I thought I should be using it this IPL. I don’t know…the time might come where I will use it. I keep seeing him [M Ashwin] and the way he loads and try and ask him a few questions.”