Former Indian batter Sanjay Manjrekar has said that teams are spending too much time on Ravichandran Ashwin when it comes to limited-overs cricket and he would never have someone like him in his T20 team.
Delhi Capitals off-spinner Ashwin ended a below par IPL 2021 campaign on Wednesday after his side bowed out of the tournament, by losing to Kolkata Knight Riders in the second qualifier. He dismissed Shakib al Hasan and Sunil Narine off successive deliveries and then got hit for a six off the penultimate ball to Rahul Tripathi to concede the match.
This season, Ashwin took just 7 wickets in 13 games and a best of 2/27 in the season. The Tamil Nadu spinner was recalled into the India squad for the T20 World Cup but Manjrekar feels “Ashwin, the T20 bowler, is not a great force in any team.”
“We have spent far too much talking about Ashwin. Ashwin, the T20 bowler, is not a great force in any team. And if you want Ashwin to change, I don’t think that’s going to happen because he’s been like this for the last five-seven years. I can understand us dwelling on Ashwin in Test matches where he’s fantastic. Him not playing a single Test match in England was a travesty. But to spend so much time on Ashwin when it comes to IPL and T20 cricket,” Manjrekar was quoted as saying on ESPNCricinfo.
“I think he has shown us in the last five years that he’s bowled exactly the same and I would never have somebody like Ashwin in my team because if I got turning pitches, I would expect people like Varun Chakravarthy or Sunil Narine or Yuzvendra Chahal and how they do their job, they get you wickets,” he added. (News18)