Team India off Spinner Ravichandran Ashwin said that he has been working on his mental health for four to six months under professional guidance. Ashwin has played an integral part in Team India’s success as recently in the New Zealand series at home in which he bagged his career’s eight Man of the Series award.
In an interview in the Cricket Monthly, the 35 year old was asked about his calmness in the game recently and weather it had any relations to the pandemic. The Indian spinner said that he started to work on his psychological challenges way back.
“It started well before that. I worked with a mental-conditioning coach for four to six months. He helped me psychologically, he was my bouncing board, he was a mirror for a while. Any time you speak to anybody when you’re going through a tumultuous time, all that most people will tell you is how you can get better, how the mistake could be on your side, rather than saying somebody else has done something wrong.” Ashwin said.
He further said that one should never discourage or point out someone’s mistake when that person is seeking out help.
“Now both these approaches are wrong. That’s what I feel. When somebody comes to you for help, don’t tell them they’re wrong, don’t tell them the other person is wrong. You just need to be a sounding board and take them in a different direction. Which is exactly what he did. The first conversation I had with him, I said, “Boss, if you’re also going to say that I am the one at fault, then I don’t want to do this. Because I’ve heard it all my life and I don’t have time for it “Okay, okay, don’t worry, I will send you a questionnaire, just fill it up.” So he just took it in a different direction. And yeah, it worked. If I’m dropped and if there is a genuine dialogue about it, it’s a question of judgement. But when the dialogue is not happening, in my head I cannot make peace with it. Not everybody needs that, but I do.”” Ashwin went onto add.
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