Follow UsArguably the best spinner of the modern era, R Ashwin wants the batters to be given leg before wicket even if the ball pitches outside the leg stump while the batters are trying to play a switch hit or reverse sweep and get hit in front of the stumps. The current rules say that a batter won’t be given out lbw if the ball lands outside the leg stump, even if the impact is in line.
In the recently concluded Covid-delayed fifth Test, Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow had little trouble facing Ravindra Jadeja as England chased down a target of 378 with utmost ease. Root kept trying to reverse sweep Jadeja, while Bairstow simply kept padding the balls away.
"In this game, it was about the approach that Joe Root and Bairstow took. Root played about 10 shots, where he turned around completely and attempted the reverse sweep. He played that 10 times, but didn't connect on 9 of them. On the 10th time, it got the under-edge and rolled away. Bairstow, meanwhile, kept padding the balls away," the offspinner said on his YouTube channel.
Getting into the details, Ashwin said: “This is where I have a small difference of opinion. As a bowler, I am informing you that I am bowling left-arm spin from over the stumps and I have this (leg side) field. You front up to that as a right-hander, but you play that reverse sweep, and hit like a left-hander. But when Root does that, he won't be out lbw because of the blind spot. It's only a blind spot when you are at 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.
"When Jadeja was bowling with that line, he (Root) started to play sweep shots for all the deliveries. There's no problem if you do that (because field is set that way). But he can't keep playing that if I place a fielder at short fine, because there's a risk of a top-edge going to that fielder. So he mixed it up. After a couple of sweep shots, he turned around and played reverse sweeps. The moment he changed to that, the blind spot became front on.
"My question is not whether he can play reverse sweep or not, whether it's negative bowling strategy or not (bowling outside leg stump), my point is about lbw. It's unfair that it's not ruled lbw.
"Let batters play the switch hit, but give us LBW when they miss. How can you say it is not LBW when the batter turns? If they start giving that out in all formats of the game, some parity could be retained between bowling and batting.”