I used to react to pressure, but now I want to play with a smile on my face: R Ashwin

Ravichandran Ashwin on Friday said he has freed himself from the clutches of external and internal pressure and is now trying to play cricket “with a smile on his face”. Ashwin scored a hundred on the first day of the opening Test against Bangladesh to rescue India from a precarious score of 144 for six, along with an equally determined Ravindra Jadeja. The 38-year-old used this innings to make it clear that he now only responds to pressure situations on the cricket field, unlike in the past when he reacted to every pinpoint.

“I enjoy and accept pressure. There is no doubt about it. It gives you an opportunity to be cornered and then try to react. But I used to be critical (of myself and others) too because people put a lot of pressure on me. I put pressure on myself,” Ashwin told reporters on Friday.

“I have always reacted to that pressure – when I was responding to someone, at an appearance or a press conference. But now it is not like that. I want to play cricket with a smile on my face. I promised myself 4-5 years ago that I will not respond to anyone and I have kept that up until now,” he added.

The mental distance from the situations and people around him has helped Ashwin to clearly differentiate between his main and secondary activities – bowling and batting.

“Bowling and batting are two completely different sports within the same game. One is done consciously, the other unconsciously.

“For me, there is a cost to pigeonholing the two, and at this stage I am able to put them in order and compartmentalize the two,” he began.

So how did he concentrate on batting during his 189-minute innings, which was spread over three sessions and saw him face 240 balls? Ashwin chose the exact opposite path to what he would have taken as a bowler.

“The mind can play tricks on you because I am a bowler who plays 12-18 balls or 24 balls in advance if I want to dictate the order. But as a batsman, I shouldn't do that. So I just used my experience to focus on the ball and hit it as I see it,” he noted.

The Chennai man also said that he has been working on his batting technique over the last three years to make it more versatile so that he can be more versatile from the team's perspective.

“So, I've been working a lot (on his batting)… quite a lot on how to maximise my batting, maximise my game, work on how to bowl fast, all that stuff. So, I'm glad it's going well. I'm pretty happy with what's happening.”

The fruits of his efforts have made him happy both personally and professionally and he enjoys this very much in the highly competitive world of modern sport.

“You feel happy when you have competed and come out of it successfully. So, yes, the basic truth is that I get a lot of joy from participating in this game.”

“For me, it's just a way to compete, feel good and be happy at the end of the day,” he explained.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)