IPL 2018: Ashwin's switch to leg-spin shows the normal would no longer work

Watching Ravichandran Ashwin bowl is one of the more pleasing sights in cricket. Forever thinking and forever trying, Ashwin is a riveting embodiment of how you can ably fuse skill with effort. And, for the longest time, he was a nonpareil spinner who ruled the world with a unique incisiveness and patience otherwise rare to find. Along the way, he was, obviously, helped by a frightening repertoire of variations he had so remarkably built to compensate for the somewhat vapid trajectories of off-spin.

Don’t let the slightly alarmist tone of it all sway you; Ashwin, at least for now, remains India’s premier spinner in the longest format. Just that in T20 cricket, he is playing catch up to a species that has become hugely popular – the wrist spinner. So much so that he has decided to become one himself. On Sunday, in Kings XI Punjab’s opening game against Delhi Daredevils, Ashwin bowled a fair bit of — among other stuff — leg-spin. He first introduced us to his latest bit of expertise three weeks ago in the Irani Cup. But that was in a five-day game played in front of an empty stadium and against an imperturbable Wasim Jaffer; the match in Mohali had a significantly larger audience and the batsmen seemed in no mood to block. Yet, Ashwin never looked out of his depth.

He bowled with reasonable control and the kind of fortitude that makes him such a compelling specimen. On one occasion, he followed up a wide with a sharp leg-break to Vijay Shankar that had the batsman scrambling. Also on display was the flipper, delivered with an action that had shades of Anil Kumble in it. Although his sole wicket came from an angled off-break; this was a stupendous rendition of an art that bowlers spend a lifetime perfecting. It might have been just four overs, but Ashwin didn’t have the look of someone who was doing this just for the second time in a high-class competitive game.