“Not In Derogatory Manner”: R Ashwin Clarifies His Comment On Vaibhav Sooryavanshi

Former Indian cricket team spinner R Ashwin clarified his statement that Vaibhav Sooryavanshi should ‘serve drinks’ to his teammates if he is not playing. Ashwin made it clear that the remark was not made in a derogatory manner and he only meant that it will be a good learning experience for the 15-year-old sensation to spend some time on the bench. The youngster made his debut during the T20I series against England and even slammed two half-centuries against Zimbabwe. “I had said earlier that Vaibhav Sooryavanshi ‘can spend time, can serve someone drinks, can sit outside.’ It was not in a derogatory manner,” he said on his YouTube channel.

“I was saying that he will get so much to learn. He has such a huge learning curve to go through that if he observes it while sitting outside, he’ll become even better. Don’t talk about dropping or picking — let him be, let him evolve. He’ll be a really phenomenal player,” he added.

Sooryavanshi did not have a good outing against England and he was bothered massively by Jofra Archer. He was dismissed by the England pacer’s short deliveries but looked in prime touch during the Zimbabwe series.

Ashwin said that not many bowlers were able to bother Sooryavanshi and added that people cannot ‘write his obituary’.

“Who do you think is the strongest batsman against the short ball? Ricky Ponting? Did he never get out on a short ball? He got out too. So we have to understand everyone has strengths, everyone has weaknesses. These things are common in international cricket. It’s simple — show your strengths, hide your weaknesses, and keep working on them behind the scenes. All these questions… How many times did he play against Jofra Archer at Trent Bridge? These are all experiences. We can’t write his obituary immediately. Can’t write someone off just like that,” Ashwin said.

“He’s such a young kid. The problem is, we rate him so highly; he performed so well in the IPL, expectations skyrocketed. We expect him to perform like Virat Kohli or Rohit Sharma every match, to be consistent. That’s not how it works. There will be ups and downs in life, in cricket too,” he added.

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