Rajasthan Royals’ Director of Cricket Kumar Sangakkara has said that Ravichandran Ashwin needs to improve his off-spin bowling after the team’s loss in the final of IPL 2022.
The Royals were up against Gujarat Titans in the title-decider on Sunday (May 29). The Rajasthan-based outfit were playing their second IPL final and first since winning the title in the inaugural season in 2008.
Royals’ experience, however, did not make much of a difference as Titans thrashed them by 7 wickets to win the title in their first-ever IPL season. The Gujarat-based franchise thoroughly dominated the Royals in the final.
Captain Sanju Samson’s decision to bat first after winning the toss did not pay off as Royals could only manage to post a modest total of 130 for 9 in the allotted 20 overs. Jos Buttler was the only player who managed to cross the 30-run mark as he scored 39 off 35 balls.
With the ball too, the Samson-led side could not deliver in the manner they would have liked. They did well to dismiss Wriddhiman Saha and Matthew Wade inside 5 overs but could not do much after that. The Titans lost one more wicket after losing two in the powerplay and chased down the total with 11 balls remaining.
Shubman Gill was the top-scorer for Titans, scoring an unbeaten 45 while the likes of Hardik Pandya (34) and David Miller (32) also played crucial knocks.
Kumar Sangakkara on Ravichandran Ashwin:
Soon after the final ended, Kumar Sangakkara addressed the media and spoke about Royals’ performance in the entire competition. The legendary cricketer admitted that the team needs a lot of improvements before speaking on Ravichandran Ashwin.
Sangakkara started by acknowledging Ashwin’s achievements on the cricket field and called him a legend before saying that the India star needs to improve his off-spin bowling. Sangakkara opined that Ashwin needs to use his off-spins more.
“Ash, he has done a great job for us. Even for Ash, being a legend in terms of what he has achieved on the cricketing pitch, even for him there would be lot of improvements and thinking to do especially with his off spins and bowl more of it,” said Sangakkara.
Prior to Sangakkara’s comments, Ashwin had a poor outing in the final against Titans. The senior spinner could not take a single wicket in the game and gave away 32 runs in just 3 overs in the low-scoring encounter. Ashwin had the worst economy-rate in the final. Overall, Ashwin had a decent outing in IPL 2022. In 17 games, he picked up 12 wickets while conceding at an economy-rate of 7.51.