Ravichandran Ashwin gives tips on how to overcome jet lag and why he practices on cement surfaces
India enjoyed a fine day of Test cricket as they ran roughshod over West Indies on the opening day of the first match at Dominica. They successfully skittled out West Indies for a paltry 150 as Ravichandran Ashwin bagged five wickets while Ravindra Jadeja played the perfect two-to-tango with a three-fer.
After the hosts were completely outplayed at the end of the first day’s play, BCCI released a video which featured the day’s headline act, Ashwin, who was seen giving tips about how to overcome jet lag. It is not easy to brave the arduous hours in the plane as after a certain point in time, one’s body and mind can really get into an unwanted groove, from which recovery takes a boatload of time which can be really tough on a cricketer’s drive to perform in a series.
Talking about how he managed to turn the tide around, Ashwin said, “I landed in Barbados, I felt a bit jet-lagged as I came from the TNPL. I felt that the shoulder, the arm speed and the body position on the crease wasn’t really ideal. The first day in Barbados, when we played on the practice surface, the nets were okay, the first day I didn’t feel okay at all. The second day I did another 8-10 overs, that was slightly better.”
He further added, “So, I just felt like that with the jet lag and the amount of workload, my shoulder rotational speed, the body going into the ball, all these things, take a certain amount of time and what happens is, sometimes, when you are playing on really slow and turning surfaces, you don’t know how much you really need to impart on the ball. So, I always practice on a concrete or a cement surface or an astro surface, where I don’t really have to muscle the ball. I just have to release the ball nicely and I know that’s my sweet spot.”
At the end of the day’s play, India were placed comfortably in the driver’s seat with the score on 80/0 and a deficit of just 70 runs to erase, courtesy of a breezy start from captain Rohit Sharma and debutant Yashasvi Jaiswal.
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