Shimron Hetmyer’s efforts being recognised in dressing room: Ravichandran Ashwin

Dubai, October 5

Delhi Capitals senior off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin lavished praise on Shimron Hetmyer, saying the swash-buckling West Indian has done well for the team this year and his efforts are recognised in the dressing room.

Hetmyer steered DC to a three-wicket win over CSK on Monday.

“I think more than about 6-8 points need to go to Hety (Hetmyer), because he has finished games, sometime when you make those 25s and 30s, you don’t quite get the recognition you must, because people are at the top are making the volume of runs,” Ashwin said at the virtual post-match press conference.

“So Hetymer is one of those heroes for us and inside that dressing room, we recognise all these efforts, so yeah, he is in a good space,” added the wily off-spinner.

According to Ashwin he has been batting well, ever since he came to the UAE from England.

“…I have been batting well and there was a lot of confidence from what happened in the last game, I was a little late, I was probably not ready for the ball and a little late on the ball and didn’t expect sort of a delivery from him and could have done better, yeah I will learn and move on from it,” the star Tamil Nadu player added.

Ashwin, who has taken five from 10 games this season, said he was satisfied and happy with the way he was bowling.

“There are 24 deliveries that I am allowed to bowl in a game and sometimes I kept on repeating this again and again, to look to go for wickets is not something that you can do in a T20 game, you have to play (to) the situation of the game, my job is to bowl to the best of my abilities in those 24 balls and create wicket-taking opportunities.

“So sometimes, I feel it is too lop-sided in trying, you can’t put a short-leg, slip, you can’t look to attack and try and get a wicket, so I think the way the ball is coming out and the way I am bowling, I am extremely satisfied and happy.”

Chennai Super Kings head coach Stephen Fleming defended skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni after the loss.

The former New Zealand skipper said his side was 10-15 runs short of a match-winning total.

“He (Dhoni) wasn’t the only one. It was a difficult day for stroke-play when 137 was almost enough, it was a tough wicket to score big on, in terms of big shots. So, both the teams struggled with that towards the end of the innings. Probably we were only 10-15 runs short of having a match-winning score,” Fleming said.

“So, that is the difficulty at the moment, is trying to assess what the conditions are in all three different grounds and batting first getting a score, that’s par of just above.

“The other thing was Delhi attack bowled very well, the last five overs were very smart, so it was tough going,” he said. PTI