Five reasons why Ravichandran Ashwin bowled so many variations in the second ODI against West Indies

Composition of opposition

This might have been a ploy devised just for this batting line-up

It goes without saying that due to the angle that they create, off-spinners generally prefer bowling to left-handed batsmen. And Ravichandran Ashwin is no different in that regard. Among the batsmen he has dismissed the most in ODIs, three of the top four are left-handers with Lahiru Thirimanne being the only batsman he has dismissed six times in ODIs.

So while this is an era of big bats and small grounds, little things like this do make a difference. West Indies only had three left-handers in their top eight and the 30-year-old might have had a look at that and decided to experiment to ensure that he still remains effective even if there aren’t a lot of left-handers in the line-up.

Against right-handers, Ashwin isn’t as effective and that might have been a major contributing factor in his decision to bowl a lot of variations, especially considering the plethora of right-handers that the Windies had in their batting line-up.