IPL 2025: Ashutosh’s shots against spin in blazing knock for DC were very heartening, says Bangar
New Delhi, March 25 (IANS) Sanjay Bangar, the former India player and batting coach, said for him, the most heartening aspect of Ashutosh Sharma’s whirlwind 31-ball 66 not out, that gave Delhi Capitals (DC) an improbable one-wicket win over Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), was his solid stroke-play against spin.
With DC slumping to 65/5 in the seventh over, Ashutosh walked in and was on 20 off 20 balls before switching gears to smash an astonishing 46 runs off his next 11 balls to lead his team to an epic win with only three balls to spare at the ACA-VDCA Stadium in Visakhapatnam.
As pointed out by Bangar, who saw Ashutosh closely while being in the Punjab Kings set-up in IPL 2024, the all-rounder was solid in his shots against spinners, like carting leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi for two fours and as many sixes, as well as taking a boundary each off Digvesh Singh Rathi and Shahbaz Ahmed. “In the Punjab Kings set-up, he was extremely impressive because if you look at the way Punjab Kings’ season went last year, it was basically down to those two individuals, Ashutosh and Shashank (Singh), who were getting the team close and winning matches through some extraordinary skills.”
“This season, I think what I liked about his knock was the way he approached spin because last season, he had certain issues against spin. He also got dismissed against spin (last year), and more so (against) left-arm spin on a couple of occasions.”
“So, he has gone back and worked quite well on those aspects, and if you look at how the LSG bowling was lined up, there were a number of spinners. So, close to 14 or 15 overs of spin were bowled during that innings. So, for him, it must be very satisfying that not only pace, because he loves batting against pace, he has got the shots, and belief. But his overall batting against spin is indeed a very heartening factor,” said Bangar, a JioStar expert, to IANS, in a virtual interaction around the 18th edition of the tournament.
IPL 2025 has seen younger players like Ashutosh, Vipraj Nigam, Vignesh Puthur, and even a capped Indian player in the form of Ishan Kishan shine, despite the presence of stalwarts of the game such as Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma.
According to Bangar, the fearlessness in the bright performances of the younger players results from the IPL providing them with the exposure and platform to succeed and play a vital role in winning matches for their respective teams. “It’s massive – the kind of impact that IPL has had on Indian teams, because of the exposure, the competitive nature of the tournament, the eyeballs that are there during the entire tournament, it helps these domestic players grow mentally as well because they suddenly start to feel that they belong to the highest level.”
“So, that has been a huge plus for the Indian team. You can clearly see that even if a few players are not available, the strength of the team doesn’t diminish, because there is a continuous stream of talented young players who are there, not just to make a mark, but they can come and win a game for the team.”
“So, thanks to IPL, Indian cricket is in a very, very strong place. I would say that even if you put a B team of India, I think they will give a run for their money for most international teams, and that’s mostly largely because of the kind of exposure that IPL gives,” he concluded.
–IANS
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