Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin remained cool and calm ahead of their crucial ICC World Twenty20 semifinal against South Africa and said they have nothing to lose.
“Most of these guys were involved in the Champions Trophy, so that’s one experience everybody can draw from. Apart from that, the one thing that the young side will have an advantage over the other teams, is that we don’t have any baggage, We have nothing to lose. We never walked into this tournament as favourites, and we wouldn’t want to be tagged as favourites. We just go in and enjoy ourselves,” said the 27-year-old during the pre-match conference at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium yesterday.
The spinner said they know the conditions pretty well but in the semi-finals “it’s anybody’s game.”
“You can’t really say we hold a majority, it’s just about anybody’s game. Whoever plays well on that particular day will have the advantage. But yes, we do hold an age having played so many games here. We know what to expect,” said Ashwin.
Ashwin was ready to take the challenge of delivering with the new ball and said, “I’ve been playing alongside Mahindra for some time, and he probably knows where to use me and where not to use me.
“I’m always open to bowling in any situation, so for me it doesn’t make any difference. In the last two or three months, I feel that I’m probably at the top of my bowling game. The ball is landing exactly where I want in,” he said.
The wily spinner from Chennai poured respect to his rival spinners. “When it comes to international cricket, there’s a very small margin between the quality of spinners. Everybody’s bound to have a certain amount of quality in them. It’s all about the mental makeup of the spinner and what amount of guts he has in that particular scenario.
“It’ll be handling pressure that makes the difference, because Imran Tahir has been in top form. And I expect Phangiso to play. When that happens, you’re pretty much evened out on the amount of spinners both teams will play,” said Ashwin.
Commenting upon Shane Warne’s short stint with South Africa Ashwin said they are not bothered with it.
“I don’t know what the South African management called him for. Probably he could add value in terms of what he can do to a spinner. Probably Tahir could learn something from him,” Ashwin said. “We’re just going to be guessing from a far distance, so we can’t really say how much of a difference he can create. He could have probably told what’s happening in Dhaka, what’s happening in Mirpur, and those kind of things could have helped them. Apart from that, I don’t know what he can do in a day’s time.”