R Ashwin opens up on playing county cricket before England tour

Virat Kohli has been cleared by BCCI to play county cricket in England for Surrey.

R Ashwin bowling for Worcestershire | Twitter

India's ace Test spinner R Ashwin, who started playing English county cricket from last year, thinks playing county cricket ahead of the five-Test series against England will depend a lot on practicability factor.

“County cricket plan is definitely there, but feasibility needs to be worked upon,” said Ashwin.

Ashwin had kept himself away from limited over series against Australia last year to play county cricket in England. He was a part of Worcestershire side.

After Ashwin and Cheteshwar Pujara, India skipper Virat Kohli will also be seen playing county cricket for Surrey. He has already been given permission by the BCCI to skip the one-off Test against debutants Afganistan to play county cricket.

The Tamil Nadu spinner will be leading Kings XI Punjab in the upcoming IPL season. He was appointed as captain over the likes of Yuvraj Singh, David Miller, Aaron Finch and Chris Gayle. 

“I am looking forward to doing it to the utmost of my capability. It is a very exciting challenge, but I have played with a lot of players who played in IPL sides and hopefully I can learn from them and their experience and try and be the best (captain) that I can,” the senior offie said. “It (IPL challenge) is a good as being in a corporate environment where you are supposed to deliver and people are looking towards you to deliver results.

“It is going to be a little pressure oriented in that scenario but it is also going to be exciting and that is where it comes. So if you can produce results there is nothing like that, but if you can’t then you have to learn and move forward.”

Ashwin added that only challenge is to mix-up with the new faces. He later said that teams retaining core have an additional benefit. 

“I am reaching (the team’s assembling point) only tomorrow and once we get together and mingle with the boys then we will know. That’s the only challenge of the IPL. Those who have a retained core have a pretty much-set team who they are used to.

“But we have almost re-formed ourselves in so many ways. Even I am new to the franchise, so it is going to be how we come together and how the team dynamics work and taking it forward.

 
 

By Sihyeu Singh - 27 Mar, 2018

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