Headline: Ashwin on mission leg-spin before SA tour

CHENNAI: Wrist spinners Yuzvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav may believe that they have sealed the spinners’ slots in the Indian ODI team, but they may soon have a rival — R Ashwin. The offie, who has been continuously overlooked for the limited-overs side since India’s loss in the Champions Trophy final, is working on his new variation — leg-spin.He has modelled his leg-spin action on the lines of former national coach Anil Kumble’s and is desperate to perfect this new variation before the South Africa Test series starts.ALSO READ: South Africa tour will be Indian bowlers' biggest test On Thursday during a VAP Trophy match against Grand Slam at the MA Chidambaram Stadium, Ashwin mostly bowled leg-spin. His figures read 9-0-47-2, and in the six overs of leg-spin that he bowled, Ashwin got the two wickets. He showed good control over line and length against two top batsmen in first-class cricket — Tamil Nadu’s N Jagadeesan and Bharghav Merai of Gujarat.Sources close to the 31-year-old offie said that he has been working on leg-spin for the past four months and some of his Ranji teammates say Ashwin was fine-tuning his wrist spin skills in the nets.After sending down three overs of off spin on Thursday, Ashwin switched to leg-spin mode. He was able to extract zip, turn and bounce off the pitch with his height coming into play. He also slipped in the odd googly and the straighter one.ALSO READ: It's India's best bowling attack to tour South Africa: MSK Prasad TN wicket-keeper batsman Jagadeesan said Ashwin’s accuracy was excellent. “I knew Ashwin was working on leg spin. He was discussing about it during the Ranji nets. He did bowl the odd leggie against Andhra and Mumbai. I had kept wickets for him. But his accuracy is excellent,” Jagadeesan told TOI on Thursday.Of course there were a couple of low full-tosses and a wide down the pads among the 36 deliveries of leg-spin that Ashwin bowled on Thursday, but that’s par for the course for a wrist spinner.Jagadeesan further said Ashwin’s deliveries spun sharply and that he was able to execute the variations with consistency. “He bowled googlies and executed the faster one with good control. As a batsman, you can’t get away from him. His height is an advantage and he did generate bounce,” said Jagadeesan.Eventually, a well-set Jagadeesan (54) missed an Ashwin straighter one to be trapped, while the offie-turned-leggie foxed Merai (45) with his flight finding the leading edge.