I was like a cat on a hot tin roof: Ravichandran Ashwin on his tour of Sri Lanka in 2015

Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on Monday compared himself to a “cat on a hot tin roof” on his last tour to Sri Lanka in 2015, two days before the two teams clash again in Galle in the first of a three-Test series.

The 30-year-old is currently ranked second on the International Cricket Council Test rankings and reflected on his performance in that series where he took 21 wickets in three Tests including a 10-wicket haul in the first Test at the same venue.

“I’m a lot more calmer,” said Ashwin. “I was more like a cat on a hot tin roof because I was looking forward to performing desperately and sometimes my performances need to be that much better for me to get anywhere better in my career. I’ve always lived that way and it’s kind of changed me over a period of time. I think I’ve become a far better cricketer than when I came here in 2015”.

In a slight twist, the Sri Lanka tour will be new head coach Ravi Shastri’s first assignment. Ironically, he was there in 2015 as team director and Ashwin, without commenting directly on his appointment, praised how Shastri bucked up the team after their loss in the first Test.

“We’ve passed that moment. The decision has been made and I can’t comment on it,” he said. “But Ravi bhai has been a fabulous person to have in the dressing room. The last time, we were in Galle and we lost and he really picked us up from that low point in our careers. He’s someone who can really have a positive influence on the dressing room and we’re really looking forward to working together”.

The ace off-spinner will be playing his 50th Test on Wednesday and he was philosophical about how the journey had been. His career had taught him, he explained, not to look forward to any milestones, to take it one Test at a time. In answer to a question about some of his favourite dismissals, he picked his dismissal of Sri Lankan great Kumar Sangakkara in the second Test in 2015 along with the dismissals of South Africa’s AB de Villiers in Nagpur, Shaun Marsh in Sydney and David Warner in Bengaluru.

He also commented that even though he was satisfied with his batting, he expected more. “I think I’ve achieved reasonably well with the bat. I do set high benchmarks for myself, I will say I am pretty low on the kind of average I would have liked to have because at one point, I started at around 42-43 and probably today I’m around 33. I think I could have done a lot better...with a little bit of tennis elbow issues, it did pull me down a little bit as a Test batsman but yes I think, the graph is on the way back.”

Ultimately though, Ashwin was philosophical about one aspect of his sparkling career: he wasn’t in the sport to be a survivor, but to be excellent. And as long as that continued, he would play the game.

“As a cricketer, I only want to be excellent,” he summed up. “I don’t want to be a survivor by any stretch of imagination. If it doesn’t go my way, it doesn’t go my way, I think I can do well in a lot of other careers. I do think I’m intelligent enough to cope with it. I don’t like to hold on to things desperately. I will do so until I really enjoy doing it. The day I think I cannot improve anymore, I cannot be excellent or I cannot perform at the best of my ability, I don’t think anybody needs to tell me so”.