Ace India off spinner Ravichandran Ashwin believes that batters should be judged leg for wicket, even if the ball is thrown outside the leg stump if they miss an attempt at medley. Under current rules, a player cannot be ruled leg before even hitting the stumps in case he is thrown outside the leg stump, which is considered a ‘blind spot’ for the batters. “My question is not whether he can reverse sweep or not, whether it is negative bowling strategy or not (bowling outside leg stomp), my point is about LBW. It is unfair that no LBW is governed,” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.
“Let batters play the medley, but give us LBW if they miss. How can you say it’s not LBW when the batter spins? If they start handing that out in all formats of the game, some parity could be maintained between bowling and batting,” insisted Ashwin, who has 442 Test wickets.
The off-spinner referred to the recently concluded fifth Test between India and England, where the hosts chased a record 378 runs to make the five-game streak 2-2, riding unbeaten hundreds of Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow.
“This game was about the approach that Joe Root and (Jonny) Bairstow took. Root played about 10 shots, turning completely and trying the reverse sweep.
“He played that 10 times but didn’t connect on 9 of them. On the 10th it got the bottom edge and rolled away. Meanwhile, Bairstow kept throwing the balls,” Ashwin said.
“Blind spot” is when a ball throws outside the leg stump and is not visible to a batter while standing in its original stance.
Ashwin emphasized that it wasn’t a “blind spot” when Root switched from his original stance and stood as a left-handed batter while playing reverse sweeps.
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“This is where I have a slight disagreement. As a bowler, I tell you that I am bowling with the left arm from across the stumps and I have this (leg side) field. hander, but you play that reverse sweep and hit like a left-handed.
“But if Root does, he won’t be LBW because of the blind spot. It’s only a blind spot if you have your normal stance. Once you play the reverse sweep and have a left-handed stance, it’s no longer a blind spot It’s front on,” Ashwin said.
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