New Delhi, (Mail Today): A spinner’s guile is considered his biggest strength. But if one looks closely at how Ravichandran Ashwin has bowled this season, it has been all about restricting the run flow.

The end result has been par performances in the shortest format of the game — T20s — but ineffective showing in ODIs and Test matches. In fact, he has been so inefficient that the likes Ravindra Jadeja and Suresh Raina have had more impact with the ball in the just concluded series against England than the specialist off-spinner.

Speaking to Mail Today, legendary spinner Erapalli Prasanna said the problem with Ashwin is his basics. Prasanna feels that Ashwin doesn’t realise that the three formats of the game are distinctively different and he has failed to adopt accordingly.

“Ashwin needs to realise that in T20s, you can get away with bowling a restrictive line as the batsmen are looking to go on the offensive and end up gifting wickets. But in ODIs and Test cricket, you need to attack and buy wickets by foxing the batsmen with the loop and penetration. And in Ashwin’s case, both are missing. Neither does he have loop, nor the penetration to beat the batsmen,” he said.

“Ashwin needs to work on his basics. He should analyse where exactly he is going wrong and work accordingly in order to succeed. You can’t have a weak off-spinner and a lot of variation with it. First you need to work on your stock delivery and then bring in the variation.”

Former India spinner Maninder Singh echoes Prasanna’s sentiments. He too feels that Ashwin needs to work on his basics.

“Ashwin used to be a very good bowler when he came in because he was new on the international arena. But nowadays it doesn’t take the opposition long to find loopholes in opponent’s game. Ashwin needs to work on his flight, his penetration and more importantly his action. He seems to have even lost his natural action and not just his effectiveness,” he said.

Maninder feels it is a case of having too much talent and not knowing what to do with it. “Sometimes it is a curse to have too much talent and a lot of variations. It makes you over-confident and you tend to stop working on the basics and improving your repertoire. I think he needs a coach who will sit down with him and help him out. The BCCI should appoint a spin bowling coach who will discuss minute details with him and work overtime with him,” he said.

Former Haryana spinner Sarkar Talwar too feels that Ashwin’s mechanism needs to be worked on as he is a very talented cricketer. “I think sometimes it helps to have a small break where you get time to assess what is going wrong with you. He is a very talented cricketer and his batting also serves the cause when the top- order falters. But then you have to realise that you are in the team for your bowling and that can’t take a backseat under any circumstance. I think if he works on his mechanism, he will be effective and serve Indian cricket for a long time,” he said.

Even MS Dhoni has confessed that Ashwin hasn’t been as effective in the ODI series against England as the management would have liked him to be.

“May be he was using variations a bit too much. But he has now realised his mistake. In the last couple of matches, against England, he has been more consistent with his length. He has not used too many variations and was trying to bowl to one line. But you also need a perfect mix as variation has been his strength. The new ODI rules with five fielders inside the circle, has also made it slightly difficult,” he said.

With almost a month’s gap between the just concluded ODI series against England and the upcoming Test series against Australia, Ashwin will look to iron out the flaws if he dreams of making the spinner’s slot in the Indian team his own.