Ravichandran Ashwin was speaking to his fans on a live chat session on Indian Cricket team’s official Facebook page. Ravichandran Ashwin, India’s star off-spinner, who is also considered one of the best in contemporary cricket, has become one of the most talked about cricketers today. His fan following has risen considerably in the last year. In fact the 29-year-old has many female fans as well. There are many hardcore supports of Ashwin on the big three social media platforms i.e. Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus. Ashwin feels one of his female fans is stalking and constantly following him on his official Twitter handle. With the recent success in all formats of the game, Ashwin’s followers on Twitter have increased manifold. Ashwin was quoted by Deccan Chronicle speaking to his fans on a live chat session on Indian Cricket team’s official Facebook page, “The next question is from Smriti Sinha, am not too sure if this is the girl who really stalks me on Twitter.” Smriti’s question was whether Ashwin has made any additions to his bowling armoury. To this question Ashwin added, “I can only spin the ball in and out finding the batsman’s inside edge or outside edge. I think I have the potential to do both. Upgradation need not necessarily depends of what variation or variety I possess. It also depends on what extra I can accumulate in terms of action, revolutions and a little bit of subtlety in my speed variations.” Many other questions were asked as well. One of the prominent one was about his strategy when batsmen are taking him on, “I get a lot of kick out of planning my wickets and strategising my particular dismissal. When a batsman is taking me on, the plan is very simple. I try and make sure what is a difficult shot for him to play and try and shut him down. The best option for me in limited overs format is to try and take the batsman away from his comfort zone and make him play a shot that is erroneous.” Ashwin also said that one should tailor his bowling for different match conditions and pitches across the world; it takes time to do that, “The conditions are always going to be a challenge to adapt to because you play most of your cricket in certain parts of the world. Then when you embark on your journey, how much can you draw from your experience, you know what needs to be the process, but as much as the process in important, you need to have that particular time in that country, get into a certain rhythm, speed and the kind of revolutions you need to put on the ball.” Ashwin said that bowling to Indian batsmen gives you goose bumps, “When you bowl to Indian batsman, it gives you nightmares. When I bowl to some of my teammates, they just take you to the cleaners. From the first ball, there’s hardly any setting rhythm when you bowling in the nets — to the likes of Virat Kohli, Rohit is okay, he starts off a little sedately and then starts to hit the ball. Pretty much most of them keep going hammers and tongs. You feel so small sometimes that you’re probably not even good enough bowling to these guys.” Ashwin added he likes bowling to Cheteshwar Pujara, “One batsman who I really enjoy bowling to in the nets is Cheteshwar Pujara. He generally treats it in the same way like he does in the game. Many of the others try and improve what they want to improve but Pujara puts net practice to maximum use.” Aswhin also shared some funny episodes of his life, “I’ve done a lot of naughty things, a lot of crazy things. Once along with my friends, we were going by car to a café in Chennai. My friend accidentally cut across and hit a motorbike. We were sitting inside and as soon as he hit the bike, the bike guy started abusing him. So my friend got scared and started driving past him. So I told my friend it was very, very unethical and it was very, very rude of him to do that.” “So he ended up saying let’s ask for pardon. So he stopped the car and as soon as we brought the windows down, me and my friend started laughing out and immediately the bike guy started chasing us all the way and we had to really drive fast and get away. Just a prank in the busy schedule, that’s the most craziest thing I’ve done,”