Adithya Ashok, a 23-year-old leg spinner from New Zealand, has a basic understanding of Indian conditions after spending a few weeks at the CSK academy in Chennai last year. He is prepared to test this insight in the three-match ODI series that starts in Baroda on January 11.
At the age of four, Ashok, the most recent spinner of Indian descent to play for the Black Caps, and his family relocated to New Zealand from Vellore, Tamil Nadu.
He still has ties to his Tamil Nadu background and was quite close to his grandfather. He had “En vazhi thani vazhi” (my path is a unique way) tattooed on his bowling form as a memorial to his late grandfather. He saw this well-known line from a Rajinikanth film with his sick grandfather.
Although Ashok travels to India frequently, last year was particularly memorable since he had the opportunity to train at the CSK Academy in Chennai. Back home, he often bowls on pace-friendly surfaces, but in India, he learnt about the many types of pitches (such as red soil and black oil).
Ashok feels his Chennai experience will help him against players like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma in the three-match series.
“First of all, just on the experience in Chennai, I was very fortunate to get that opportunity. I’m grateful for the opportunity from New Zealand Cricket to send me over there and with a few of our boys and learn,” said Ashok in a select virtual media interaction on Thursday.
“We have a great connection with Sriram Krishnamurthy, who’s obviously the lead there. The things that we learned there were amazing, to be honest. Understanding about potentially how you can go about setting up batters and things like that.
“There’s a lot of stuff that we learned that was really cool. For example, black soil and red soil and how those pitches behave and things like that. I think those are the big takeaways for me and it’s just kind of building my library as a cricketer which is probably the most important thing.”
Does he feel more confidence heading into the series against India after that stint last year?
“It just gives me a little bit of like a base understanding. I don’t think it sits there and makes you like tick the box and go, okay, sweet, I’m gonna do well or okay, I’ve got this covered or whatever. You just have an understanding of what it might behave like.
“And I think you give yourself the opportunity to have a bit of experience under your belt and build that library for yourself so that you can recall the experiences and recall the conversations that you had with people and the way that the ball behaved off the surface, things like that.
“So having been here before, and especially with Sriram (Krishnamurthy) and stuff in Chennai, it only creates a little bit more experience for myself, which I’m very grateful for,” said Ashok.
When it comes to role models, Ashok ranks the legendary Shane Warne at the top, but at home, he can rely on leg spinners of Indian descent like Tarun Nethula and Ish Sodhi.
Ashok will have to wait for his chances in the shortest format, as Sodhi will be New Zealand’s top spinner in the T20 World Cup.
“If you ask me who my favourite leg-spinner of all time is, it’s tough to go past Shane Warne. But growing up in New Zealand, it was really cool to see, I’m really fortunate to have the relationship with him now, but someone like Ish is big for me in terms of being like a big brother.
“He’s someone that I watched growing up and in high school and intermediate primary school, high school, all of those, trying to watch him play and stuff like that. And another one I was really fortunate to watch is my current mentor Tarun,” said Ashok, who also aspires to play Test cricket.
In addition to Nethula, Paul Wiseman, a former cricket player from New Zealand, has been a pillar of support for Ashok. He was there for him as he battled a back issue that necessitated surgery, which is quite uncommon for a spinner. He will only gain more experience from the next three ODIs in the nation of his birth.
