‘Knew what he was trying’: Priyansh Arya talks about how he targetted R Ashwin and his batting philosophy | Ipl News

With a witty one-liner, uttered with an expressionless face, Priyansh Arya reveals his batting ethos: “Attacking batsmen hamesha out hothe tho woh bahut gandha hi lagta hain.” Attacking batsmen look ugly when they get out. He was not talking about the aesthetics of six-hitting, but his immunity to the criticisms that blow his way when the attacking strokes he lives nails his end too.
He clarifies: “Not just me, look at every attacking batsman. It’s part of the game, and I don’t think about failures, or whether this shot could get me out or not, when I am batting. I just watch the ball, and look to hit it,” he says. His thoughts, like his batting, have an irreducible simplicity. He only sees wide open spaces on the field, and a hard ball that will fly off the blade.
So the first-ball duck against Rajasthan Royals didn’t inhibit him from hitting a first-ball six against Chennai Super Kings. Even the most enthusiastic IPL greenhorn would have exercised restraint the second time around. But why shouldn’t he, when he is bursting with his six-hitting self-belief?
Story continues below this ad

He remembers a chat with Ricky Ponting in the nets the day after Jofra Archer’s corker had dishevelled his stumps. “He asked me what I would do if I get a similar ball the next game. I told him I would try to hit the ball for a six. And he told me it is not a problem and that anyone could get out first ball in the first ball of the game,” he says. The reassurance of Shreyas Iyer, the captain, that he would open in all 14 games raised his morale further.
But few though would imagine, let alone hit, the first ball of the next game for a six. He did, slapping the widish ball over point without fuss, with a brisk, anti-clockwise tilt of his wrs, from the left-handed Khaleel Ahmed. A catch, from a leading edge, was spilled next ball. But Priyansh batted as though nothing had happened. “It didn’t weigh in my mind, everybody drops catches. We dropped plenty too,” he says. He brushed the reprieve aside with another swamping six the same over.
Beneath the outwardly soft-edged exterior, though, is an intelligent schemer. When Ravi Ashwin, with a wealth of 765 international wickets, marked his run-up, from around the stumps, he immediately second-guessed the masterful spinner’s designs. “I figured out what he was trying to do, bowl into my legs and cramp me. So I decided to sweep him, and it is exactly how he bowled,” he says. And it was exactly how he greeted his first ball. now, he was reading Ashwin’s mind like a psychoanalyst. He waited on the back foot for him to err and slugged him over wide long-off.
Every fifth ball he has faced this IPL has landed beyond the fence (15 sixes off 75 balls). He does so with a note-perfect bat-swing, which makes up for his lack of Chris Gayle-like shoulders or the forearms of Sanath Jayasuriya or the wings-span of Matthew Hayden. But he dismisses the media-spun portrait of him as a natural six-hitter. Story continues below this ad
“It is not true that someone is a born six-hitter. It is something that you get with maturity and exposure. When I started, I was a timid boy. But I became bolder after I began to play more frequently,” he says.
He could come atypically soft-spoken for a cricketer from Delhi, but he doesn’t take refuge in platitudes. He could be playfully blunt too. Asked about the “specifics” of Ponting’s counsel to him, he faked innocence. “I frankly don’t remember what he told me. I would remember it only when I am at the nets or batting in the nets,” he says. As if to assert his innocence, he repeats, “Sach mein sir, sach mein yaad nahin hain.”
Like his equanimity in accepting zeroes and hundreds, success and failures, without shedding emotions, he looks for logical reasons behind the setbacks. He has attended several IPL trials before the breakthrough DPL seasons, but he was not devastated because he knew he had not cracked the consency code. “I just had two good outings in eight innings (in SMAT), so how do I expect to be part of the team?’ he asks.

He is aware of his flaws too, and plays within his limitations. His front-foot does not stride out much, so waits for the ball to reach him. He does not search for expansive drives, rather gets under the ball and slices them behind point. Neither does he throw the bat blindly at balls outside the off-stump. Behind the plain-faced simplicity, the six-hitting prowess, is a prudent and practical batsman, unhindered the fear of failure.