Ravichandran Ashwin Heaps Praise On WV Raman For Teaching Him The Nuances Of Cricket

India’s off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has showered words of praise on former Indian cricketer WV Raman for helping him bring discipline and accuracy in his game. Ravichandran Ashwin is already a legend for the Men in Blue as he has scalped more than 550 wickets across all formats in international cricket, with Test cricket being his favourite format wherein he has picked a total of 365 wickets so far.

Ashwin is the fastest Indian bowler (also in some records the joint-fastest in the world) to reach the 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, 300 and 350-wicket mark in Test cricket in terms of the number of innings. In 2016, he became the third Indian to win the ICC Cricketer of the Year award.

Ravichandran Ashwin said WV Raman’s discipline had a great influence early on in his career and a lot of credit for his success goes to WV Raman.

Ravichandran Ashwin Heaps Praise On WV Raman

“W.V. Raman who is known to be a straight forward and extremely disciplined man trained us to throw the ball accurately that should land above the stumps. He also maintained that I stand no chance as a spinner if I cannot hit the top of the bat of a batsman every time I bowled,” Ashwin told Sanjay Manjrekar in ESPNCricinfo’s Videocast.

Ashwin said that Raman, who is currently the head coach of India Women’s Cricket team, had a great role in shaping his rhythm as an off-spinner.

“In fact, W.V. Raman helped me master my rhythm. He was the first person who with or without his knowledge, inculcated this self-conscious training inside me,” Ravichandran Ashwin added.

I Will Never Forget WV Raman’s Contribution In My Career: Ravichandran Ashwin

“He would keep telling me, you’re running 10% slower or you’re running 15% faster. And this put me in a great place when I started playing first-class cricket. And these are the things that I will never forget in my career. But because he was straight forward, a bit dismissive and he could put pressure on people, they started moving away from him,” Ashwin further said.

“I am good at T20 cricket. If my body holds up, I see a purple patch coming up for me in Test cricket”, says Ravichandran Ashwin when Sanjay Manjarekar, host of ESPNcricinfo, asks him about his future plans.

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