Rajasthan Royals head coach Kumar Sangakkara has said that Ravichandran Ashwin should focus more on bowling off-spin and not carrom ball.
Ravichandran Ashwin is a legend in his own right but he still needs to think about improvement and bowl the conventional off-break deliveries more frequently, feels Rajasthan Royals Director of Cricket Kumar Sangakkara. The 36-year-old veteran off-spinner, India's second-highest Test wicket-taker (442), is known to experiment a lot with his bowling. He often bowls the conventional off-breaks lesser compared to the carrom balls that go away from the right-handers
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"Ash (Ashwin) has done a great job for us," Sangakkara said at the post-match press conference after RR lost to Gujarat Titans by seven wickets in the IPL final on Sunday.
"Even for Ash, being a legend in terms of what he has achieved on the cricketing pitch, there will be a lot of improvements and thinking to do, especially with his off-spinners and bowl more of it," Sangakkara commented about the team's oldest member, who could manage only 12 wickets in 17 games this season.
In the summit clash also, the ace off-spinner opted to bowl quite a few carrom balls instead of regulation off-spin. He gave away 32 runs in three overs without claiming any wickets while defending a modest 130.
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Opting to bat first, RR was restricted to 130/9, which was chased by GT in 18.1 overs and Sangakkara felt the score was never going to be enough.
"It was a tough one. 130 was never enough. We were debating whether to put them in (to bat) first as well. By the time we arrived at the ground, we looked at the pitch, it was pretty dry and we thought it will get slower and maybe offer a little bit of turn for our spinners. So, we were expecting to get about 160-165."
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Talking about Riyan Parag, the veteran keeper-batter backed the youngster to strengthen the Rajasthan middle-order. "I think Riyan Parag, he has got a huge amount of potential, and we got to work him into higher batting number by the time we come in next season. I look forward to kind of grooming him to become more of a kind of an early middle-order player rather than just a death-hitter.
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 "Kumar Sangakara on Ravichandran Ashwin")
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