Former England captain Kevin Pietersen revealed how he tackled Ravichandran Ashwin’s doosra during his playing days. Pietersen enjoyed batting in Indian conditions and scored 703 runs in nine matches at an average of 43.94. The Englishman was one of the best overseas batters of spin bowling and didn’t find much difficulty while tackling Ashwin.
Ahead of the five-match Test series between India and England, Pietersen revealed that he analysed what Ashwin used to load the ball at the back of his run-up.
“I picked Ashwin’s ‘doosra’. He used to load the ball at the back of his run-up and I think he still does that now. He never ran up with the ball in his hand as an off-spinner and changed it late for the doosra; you can’t do that. He loaded it up early,” Pietersen told Michael Atherton for Times.co.uk.
Ashwin has claimed 88 wickets in 19 Test matches he played against England and he will look to script history in the upcoming series to make it 500 wickets in red-ball format. He is just 10 short of the iconic mark.
The legendary English batter said that he used to predict what Ashwin would bowl which allowed him to counter-attack him despite the turning tracks in India.
“I was 100 percent confident when he was going to bowl it and you’d see how many times I hit him over the off side. I’d see the doosra at the back of his mark and because he had a stacked leg-side field because the ball was turning so much, I’d think ‘four or six,” he said.
Meanwhile, he also advised the English batters to not get bowled and lbw against the likes of Ravindra Jadeja and Axar Patel who are disciplined with their line and lengths.
“If your feet are good and you are not planting your front foot and you are playing down the line of the ball, you should be fine. Just make sure you are not getting bowled or lbw. If you nick it to slip, no problem at all. If you get bowled or lbw that’s a big issue,” he added.
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