The 29-year-old, who used to train with his personal coach Sunil Subramaniam, began to undergo rigorous training under the supervision of Jolly Rovers coach G Jayakumar. The duo worked on the 29-year-old's shortcomings and focused particularly on improving his batting.
Jayakumar said the duo worked on Ashwin's stance and backlift and their hard work seems to have paid off as he scored a fantastic and pa tient 113 in the first innings of the first Test against the West Indies at Antigua.
"When we started training, his sole aim was to improve his batting. He was already the No 1allrounder in the world and he wanted to retain that position. He was in search of a new stance and we worked together on it. He was standing at the crease with his shoulders open.
"We corrected that a bit.We also worked on his backlift. I saw him putting these few changes in technique into practice on Saturday and I am really happy that our efforts at the nets bore fruit," said Jayakumar.
Jayakumar has also worked closely with India opener Murali Vijay. He said that he followed a similar coaching module with which he would train Vijay.
"We would practise for 2-3 hours every day . The way I used to train Vijay , I would follow a similar pattern as the basics remain the same. We also worked on his drives.That's why you would see him driving a lot in his innings.We also focused on his running between the wickets at the nets," Jayakumar said.
The coach said that the way Ashwin made a comeback from the lean phase shows the off-spinner's character and hopes that his batting form will translate into his bowling. "I don't know whether he was under pressure or not. But he used the break between the IPL and the West Indies series to improve his game.
And the way he scored the century shows how strong he is mentally , especially when he was returning to cricket from a rough patch. Hopefully , he will now take a lot of wickets," said Jayakumar.
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