5 variations in Ravichandran Ashwin's bowling

#2 Carom ball

Amla didn’t know what hit him

Also known as the knuckleball, this delivery was first introduced in the game by the Sri Lankan spinner Ajantha Mendis. Ashwin has made a very good use of this delivery especially against the tail-enders who fail to pick up the turn that goes in the other direction as opposed to the conventional off-spin.

He uses his middle finger to flick the ball from the right part of it and the ball goes from leg to off for a right-hander. The batsmen who are not so sound in technique against the spinners find it extremely hard to judge this ball.

There are two very famous incidents of Ashwin dismissing the batsmen with a carom ball. One was when he bowled Hashim Amla from around the wicket in the World T20 2014. The ball pitched outside the line of leg stump and turned to hit the off-stump as Amla was left stranded.

The other one was when he trapped AB de Villiers in the Nagpur Test in 2015. He barraged the batsman with a series of off-spinners and got him accustomed to that delivery and suddenly pulled out the carom ball which found de Villiers plumb in front of the wickets.