“Ravichandran Ashwin Is Here To Stay”: Rohit Sharma On Off-Spinner’s White-Ball Future

Newly appointed ODI skipper Rohit Sharma has a different thinking regarding Ravichandran Ashwin’s white-ball future. He made a comeback in the Indian T20I squad in the T20 World Cup for the first time since 2017. He was amongst the wickets as well in what was otherwise a campaign to forget for the Indian team. 

In a conversation with eminent sports journalist Boria Majumdar, Rohit Sharma opened up on his thoughts regarding Ashwin’s future in ODI and T20I cricket.

“Ashwin will give you that flexibility, you can use him in the powerplay or the middle over, so having a bowler like that – an all-rounder bowler I’d like to call – who can bowl anytime and anywhere in whatever situation, is always important,” Sharma was quoted as saying while speaking to journalist Boria Majumdar on ‘Backstage with Boria’. 

“You don’t want one-dimensional bowlers where you know he can only bowl outside powerplay, he cannot bowl in the death, can only bowl to right-handers, can only bowl to left-handers. The more options you have with bowlers the better, that’s what I felt,” he stated.

“I thought he’d be a great addition, and I think he’s here to stay. He’s definitely here to stay,” the Nagpur-born Sharma added.

Ravichandran Ashwin Will Give You Flexibility: Rohit Sharma

Ashwin has developed himself into a useful all-rounder for India in all formats of the game. He recently won the Man of the Series in the Test series against New Zealand, picking up 14 wickets in the Test series. In the Kanpur Test, he also got useful scores of 38 and 32.

Overall, in white-ball cricket, Ashwin has picked up 211 wickets from 162 international matches. It will be interesting to see if he is included in the ODI squad for the South Africa series.