Rajasthan Royals' (RR) star spinner Ravichandran Ashwin was left surprised when the umpires took the decision to change the ball on their own due to the dew factor in the Indian Premier League (IPL) match against Chennai Super Kings (CSK). The match took place at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on Wednesday (April 12) night forcing the umpires to step in and change the ball during the course of the match, leaving R Ashwin 'baffled'.
Rajasthan defeated the four-time champions CSK in their own backyard by three runs in a last ball thriller. Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Ravindra Jadeja had to get 21 runs off the last over while chasing a daunting target of 176.
The ace off-spinner from Tamil Nadu has never seen the umpires change the ball due to excessive dew and has called for consistency before taking such decisions.
"I'm quite surprised the umpires changed the ball for dew on their own. It's never happened before and I'm quite surprised. Some of the decisions in this year's IPL on the field have left me a little flummoxed to be honest," Ashwin said at the post-match conference.
"I mean, (it) left me flummoxed in a good or a bad way. It's because I think what you need is a little bit of balance. As a bowling team, we are not asking for the ball to be changed. But the ball was changed on the umpires' accord. I did ask the umpire and he said we can change it," Indian stalwart added.
"So I just hope every time there is dew they can change it every single time going forward in this IPL that sort of, you can do whatever you want, but you just need to be in a standard going forward," Ashwin further added.
The 36-year old is enjoying the way he is bowling and looks forward to deceive more batters with his flighted deliveries.
"I'm just enjoying the way I'm bowling and I'm not giving it too much thought. For someone like me, who bowls in different phases of the game, I have to be prepared to bowl different lengths, different speeds and different trajectories," Ashwin concluded.
Ashwin shone with the ball as he returned with an impressive spell of 2/25 to be adjudged the Player of the Match.
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