CHENNAI: It's not easy to understand R Ashwin, the captain. He thinks out of the box, experiments and rings in changes when least expected. This was evident in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy, when he led Tamil Nadu and made changes in the batting line-up that raised questions.
In the of IPL, his 'mankading' would have grabbed more eyeballs than his captaincy. But that didn't stop him from experimenting. He picked three spinners against Delhi Capitals, a match which Kings XI Punjab won. After the match, the team's bowling coach Ryan Harris said the idea was to take the pace off the ball.
On Saturday, against Chennai Super Kings at Chepauk — where the pitch is conducive to spin — he opted for an extra pacer in Andrew Tye in place of off-spinner Mujeeb Ur Rahman. Given that their pacers have not been in the best of form, this move raised eyebrows.
The match was played at wicket No 5 at MA Chidambaram Stadium, where the opener against Royal Challengers Bangalore had taken place. The pitch had something for the spinners and was slow. It was two-paced in the initial stage. On a sluggish wicket, taking the pace off the ball would have been the ideal way to contain, but Ashwin did not think so. On the other hand, Chennai skipper MS Dhoni brought in Harbhajan Singh.
Losing the toss and bowling first, Punjab's pacers conceded 114 runs in 12 overs for zero wickets. The two Ashwins — leg-spinner Murugan being the other — gave away just 46, suggesting that spinners were not easy to face. By the time Dhoni came on to bat, Ashwin had finished his four overs for impressive figures of 3/23. Dhoni duly took the seamers to the cleaners. Chennai scored 44 runs in the final three overs bowled by pacers.
A target of 161 was chaseable. But given that Chennai had three mainstream spinners with Kedar Jadhav and Suresh Raina as part-timers, one would not have expected the run chase to be a cakewalk. And that's how it turned out to be.
After Punjab lost early two wickets early for seven runs, KL Rahul (55) and Sarfaraz Khan (67) stitched together a stand of 110 in 93 balls to keep them alive. But the duo decided not to take risks against the spinners in the middle overs. Between over numbers 13 and 17 the spinners leaked just 24 runs.
This decision backfired as the required rate kept increasing when the pacers were introduced. Punjab needed 46 off 18. In the end, the spinners made the difference between the sides as Chennai won by 22 runs.
After the loss, Ashwin reflected on how they missed the game by a small margin. "We have a combination where we have a six-strong batting and five-strong bowling attack. I thought the bowlers bowled well. Probably, we missed the mark a bit in the powerplay, which is understandable. Whoever bowled and got a role to play, I thought we got them under par. We were almost in control of our game for a very good part of the game."
With nine more matches to go for Punjab, one can expect a few more twists in the tale in Ashwin's captaincy. But only time will tell whether that will take the team to the playoffs.