Be it any player, be it an umpire or any cricket expert, everybody accepts the fact that Ravichandran Ashwin is one of the smartest thinkers in the game. Many times Ravichandran Ashwin has spoken about the spirit of the game and has been very vocal about how he plans and sets a batsman up. Recently, he opened up on how he had planned against Steven Smith, arguably one of the greatest Test batsmen of all time when India toured Australia for the 2020-21 Border Gavaskar Trophy. The mankading incident that sparked controversy in the 2019 IPL had Ashwin into all sorts of problems, but he later explained why it was both within the laws and the spirit of the game.
Ashwin who mostly features for India in the Test matches has now opened up on why LBWs should be inflicted on the batsman when he attempts a switch hit. Ashwin who has taken 442 wickets in 86 matches does not mince his words when it comes to the technicalities of the gentleman's game. When England had toured India in 2021 and experts from all corners were targeting Indian curators, Ashwin was the first one to come out and defend the Indian turfs and questioned their views about the game.
"My question is not whether the batsman can reverse sweep or not, whether it falls under the genre of negative bowling strategy or not (bowling outside leg stump), my point is about inflicting LBW on the batsman who is trying to outplay the bowler by trying the switch hit. It's unfair that it's not ruled LBW. There is no issue if the batters play the switch hit, but the bowlers should be given LBW when the batter misses. You can't say that it is not LBW when the batter turns. Once you start giving that out in all formats of the game, some parity could be retained between bowling and batting", said Ashwin.
