Ravichandran Ashwin opens up about his cricket, Virat Kohli and more

In an interview to Cricbuzz, Ashwin said, “I would say 80 per cent of India's cricketers are accidents. That's how it works.”

Excerpts:

Can you recall the first instance when you started believing in yourself?

There were lot of instances where self-belief has mattered but the thing with cricket is that you sometimes, you just don't have it... it goes missing. That confidence (where) you believe anything is possible and it turns out to be possible.

My first instance was when I went to do engineering and how that translated into self-belief of playing cricket. What was happening then was engineering is a professional degree, as you all know, and this is also a professional sport. I was at the crossroads when I was not able to make a decision if I have to do engineering or which (of the two) has to take first priority. I was at the NCA with the U-17. Because I was leading the U-17 NCA side... they tipped me to be the main players of the U-19 Indian side. And I had a decent year in Tamil Nadu, and when I say decent year I am not mincing words, people who were not even that good enough went on to play for the South Zone. I wasn't even selected for the South Zone team and the national selector called up and asked why I was not there in the team. So that was one of those incidents that put me in the crossroads. My performances started to dip for that year because I had gone on to do engineering, and it was a combination of a lot of things.

So I stood there and decided in the second year that I had to take up more time towards cricket and that engineering had to take a backseat. Because this is what I loved doing. When I started doing that, my engineering became far more tougher. People actually started harassing me and there were people, like the college dean, principal, HOD started saying that 'You anyway earn a lot of money playing cricket, why do you want to do engineering? This is meant for people who want to survive engineering.' I had to hear all those things. So I decided 'I have enrolled here, so there's no looking back, let me go after cricket completely and let me also give my best for engineering'. That kind of made the steely resolve inside me. So that was one of those incidents that I completely trusted that cricket was my love and self-belief helped me get through it.

Getting that focus on only cricket, did that help in building confidence about your game?

It wasn't focusing only on cricket. See my college was about 40km away from my home. I was practicing at IIT then, I was playing for Chemplast. If I had to get to practice, I had to catch a couple of buses and one van to actually get to practice. From school to college, I didn't know how to manage these things. There was hardly any bus access to my college. Now it's improved a lot more. When I had to come back from college, it was actually kind of scary. My first day at college was actually a very interesting one. There was a strike and my college buses didn't even leave my college. I was 40km away and I didn't even know the route. That was my first day in college. I came back on top of a mud lorry. Then it went into the other side of the city. I left at about 4:30 in the evening and came home about 10:45 or so. That was my first day of college. So it was obviously very scary for me to actually think about coming back from college every day for practice. So it took a backseat eventually. I thought I could manage it, being a youngster, I thought 'okay I can manage playing cricket'. But it wasn't so. Because I had stepped into a professional arena.

The next year I decided, 'which have I done out of love?' The answer was very clear. I had to do what I had to do with engineering. But I wanted to do cricket. So my routine would be like, some of the days I skipped going to college, I would practice in the morning and would be really tired. If I didn't go to college it meant that in the afternoon I would go to the gym, evening I would go back for practice. Whenever I went to college, I'd leave my house at 5:30, take my breakfast everything, whichever my mom gave. And then go to the ground to finish practice, have my breakfast on the way while catching a couple of buses and go to college and reach by about 1. The college will finish at 4 O'clock. I would actually leave one hour earlier, to get back in time for team practice.

This used to be a routine for about three years. Which is what I think eventually paid off. And it started showing immediate results. When I started putting in this sort of hard work, it started showing results in the league games that I was playing. I was named in the probables of the Ranji Trophy side.

I am that kind of a person who will not go and unnecessarily suck up behind anybody. And eventually I don't hide behind showing any displeasure to people that I think are wrong. So I eventually did to a selector. I just asked him why I was not there in the team and he took offence to it. I wouldn't really care if he took offence to it. All those are small, small steps in life which helped become what I am today.

How much does a non-selection affect you, how would you cope with it?

It really does (affect). It's a very interesting thing. I just had a chat about this to a close friend of mine, he's there in the team as well. I think a blow to someone's confidence when he is very young, say when he is 16, 14, 17, can actually kill his career. Not everybody will have that resolve. You actually have to be a street-dog to fight and come out of it. I have seen a lot of cricketers, we were talking about one such cricketer who was playing the IPL and all of that. What sort of an impact, how it will scar his inner self-belief when such a hit is taken. If you look around, India is such a country where we are used to hardships. We don't have the time to complain. We see a lot of these foreign cricketers. English cricketers, Australian cricketers talk about being.... they are actually depressed, they are away from home, they are home-sick. But you never get to see that with the Indians. There are two things - one, we are not used to saying this and two, when they actually say this we don't really respect it. We actually kick them on the back side saying they are weak.

Is there a lack of understanding about such things?

I think we are just insensitive people. That's the truth. We don't watch what we say. We don't even care about our neighbours. We throw our garbage into the next person's house. What do you expect from such people? I'm not faulting anything of our own people but I am sure that the next generation will change. We are talking about the previous generation that looked after their own four walls. The next generation will change. There is more exposure. People are far more evolved.

It is only natural that a kid who is 14 or 15 years old and is hit by a selection drama NEEDS help. If he is helped, if the cricketer is talented, he will come through. Which isn't something that is happening. I would say 80 percent of India's cricketers are accidents. That's how it works.

What do you advocate then? Change in structure, someone to motivate or speak to them at that point?

Why do you have to repair a house if we can build it properly in the first place. If we can get our selections in order, if there can be transparency and if there can be fairness, you don't need these motivational speakers or psychologists to address these kids. Lets build a proper house first. At the same time, I would also like to give little credit to this system because that's what has made me.

That's what made me but I have that inner-quality to dwell on it and come out of it. But will another person have it is a million-dollar question that needs to be answered.

Where did you get this from?

As I told you, from college.

How was it in school?

I was a proper big-time school cricketer in Chennai. Everybody used to talk about me. Every other day my name would be in the newspaper. That was my school cricket life. After that when I had to jump into professional cricket and when I had to play club cricket in Chennai, it was a different ball-game. That was the same time I got into college, had a bit of a dip and eventually I took the right decision and I also put the right methods to my madness. So it worked.

You had mentioned Virat Kohli. How is your relationship with him? Does his energy/confidence rub off on others?

I am an extremely confident person in the first place. Why I am saying that is because I don't need reassurance. At the same time, I don't need someone to tell me what's going wrong with myself. If it's wrong, I'm the first person to admit it. I think Virat has a very different kind of confidence. It is not quiet confidence, it is exuberant confidence, which can be very infectious. Sometimes it can be a little too much for someone to assimilate it. Many a time I have seen him say 'Okay, don't worry I'll make the runs'. It could be even 400 runs and he would say he will make it. That's an amazing sense of self-confidence for someone to have. And he's got extraordinary skill to back that confidence. I think his confidence stems from a lot of good work ethic.

I think he's also come from the culture where we have seen India hardly win few games together. I have seen cricket on TV and India never used to win, let me not get into that, the golden eras and all that. I think India definitely wins a lot more now than we used to. We also have that little bit of hurt inside as how India has been beaten and now we want to try and beat them. I think he comes from that school of thought and that is very refreshing to see actually.

Read the full interview here.