Ravichandran Ashwin‘s Chennai Super Kings (CSK) return hasn’t been the most fruitful, with the veteran spinner struggling to pick wickets. So far this season, the bowler has picked just three wickets in the first three matches while leaking runs at an economy rate of 9.90. Ashwin used to carry a reputation of being a bowler who doesn’t concede too many runs but that no longer seems to be the case. In the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season, batters have not paid much attention to the reputation Ashwin holds while deciding to take the aggressive route against him.
Former England captain Michael Vaughan feels the new generation is focusing more on the ball than the bowler in their pursuit of runs.
“I guess a few years ago they probably showed him a lot of respect and in team meetings they said, oh we’re probably going to hit Ashwin for 24 to 28 and not give him too many wickets, we’ll take that. These guys now don’t even think like that. It’s like, how can we damage him? How can we whack him? He’s not ragging it square,” Vaughan told Cricbuzz.
“They’ve obviously probably seen all his deliveries many, many times over so maybe they’re picking it out of the hand a little bit better and if you do that you get more chance to hit the ball. I just think it’s a different approach in terms of mentality. I just think if it’s in their zone it’s like, right okay, we don’t care about that,” he added.
While there’s no denying that Ashwin is a veteran of the game who has won many titles over the course of his career, it’s the batters’ “we don’t care” approach that has earned them great rewards against the CSK spinner.
“We don’t care who it is. The name’s irrelevant. It’s just the ball that’s coming down. It’s a great mentality to have. We always used to say try and face the ball, not the name. It used to be quite funny saying that to an England side facing Shane Warne,” said Vaughan.
“It’s quite hard to convince players that you just face the ball, but I think this modern player, they genuinely just look at the ball and think right it can be whacked, it doesn’t matter what the name is,” he added.
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