IPL 2022: He will need to think about bowling more off-spin – Kumar Sangakkara on Ravichandran Ashwin

Rajasthan Royals director of cricket Kumar Sangakkara believes veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin should think about bowling more off-spin in T20 cricket to get the best out of himself.

Ashwin has a lot of variations in his arsenal and he tries to make the most of them.

Thus, one feels he does not bowl his stock off-spin delivery frequently. Furthermore, it was noticed that Ashwin bowled quicker through the air in the first qualifier against Gujarat Titans and conceded 40 runs in his quota of four overs without taking any wicket.

The experienced off-spinner also went wicketless in the all-important final against GT and conceded 32 runs in his three overs. Ergo, Ashwin was not at his best in the playoff stages.

Ashwin took 12 wickets in 17 matches for Rajasthan Royals in Tata IPL 2022 at an average of 41.91. However, his economy rate was impressive as he conceded his runs at 7.50.

Kumar Sangakkara said in the post-match presentation, “Ash (Ashwin), he’s done a great job for us. Even for Ash, being a legend in terms of what he has achieved on the cricketing pitch, there will be a lot of thinking and improvements to do, especially with his off-spin and bowling more of it.”

Former Sri Lankan skipper added that they need to improve in the middle-order. Jos Buttler, Sanju Samson, and Shimron Hetmyer did a fine job for RR but they will want more consistency from Riyan Parag and Devdutt Padikkal.

“If you take our batting, we had contributions from Jos (Buttler), Sanju (Samson), and Shimron Hetmyer in the early stages. Riyan (Parag) and Devdutt (Padikkal) played well in patches. In terms of overall performance, we need a little bit more from the support-role players.”

Meanwhile, Riyan Parag was once again inconsistent for the team while batting at the fag end of the innings. Sangakkara feels they need to groom the youngster to bat at a higher position in the batting order.

“Riyan has got huge potential. We’ve got to work him into a higher batting number by the time we come in next season. We need to groom him as an early middle-order player rather than a death hitter.”

Sangakkara concluded by saying that they tried to play their strongest team in the final but they could not get over the line.

“We managed to try most of those players – Daryl Mitchell a couple of games, Rassie (van der Dussen) and Neesh (James Neesham) also played a couple of games. But then, when you look at our bowling attack, with the four overseas combinations, once we have our two overseas bowlers, we could only fit in Jos and Hetty (Hetmyer) into the side.”

“We can’t play Neesh as a full fifth bowling option, he’ll have to be a sixth bowling option. When you take the quality of the players that we had, this was the best and strongest side that we put out.”