A couple of months ago in Darwin, Ash Chandrasinghe made 47 in a Twenty20 game against Pakistan A. Not much notable about that kind of score, other than the fact he got there in 42 balls with a couple of sixes.
In T20, such a scoring rate is at the slower end. But given that Chandrasinghe’s most recent appearance for Victoria is now infamous for the slowness of his first innings (when he scored just 46 from almost seven hours at the crease), this was a sign of significant progress for the 22-year-old, amid a wider systemic change at Junction Oval.
Ash Chandrasinghe on a white ball Wednesday at Junction Oval.Credit: Simon Schluter
Pending a fitness test on a quad, Chandrasinghe will have the chance to showcase his evolution against Tasmania in the Sheffield Shield opener on Tuesday.
Eighteen months ago, Chandrasinghe was a late inclusion for the Sheffield Shield final when Travis Dean dropped out injured on match eve. On days one and two, he scraped his way through 280 balls to carry his bat for that painstaking 46.
It was the kind of innings that rattled round the social media sphere, target of equal parts admiration and derision. The latter was offered up at volume by partisan spectators at the WACA Ground. And while teammates and coach Chris Rogers were generous in praise, the experience took some time getting over.
“It feels like a little while ago now, but it wasn’t my ideal innings,” Chandrasinghe told this masthead. “If I’m out there all day I’d like to be scoring a lot more runs, and I found it quite tough to score.
Victoria’s Sheffield Shield squad
Peter Handscomb (capt), Ash Chandrasinghe, Xavier Crone, Sam Elliott, Sam Harper, Marcus Harris, Campbell Kellaway, Cam McClure, Jon Merlo, Todd Murphy, Fergus O’Neill, Mitch Perry, Tom Rogers.
*Glenn Maxwell and Scott Boland are unavailable for this round.
“But the beauty of it was having the guys around me and they were really supportive. I think that gave me the tools to realise what I need to work on, and hopefully I went through that for the best, and I needed to go through that to help me turn me into a better player and to have more shots.
“The idea I had when I was batting was that you can only score runs while you’re out there. But there’s a little more that comes into that, which I’m learning about now. That’s still something I want to hold at my core because that’s still my strength, so it’s just working around that and not compromising too much if that sacrifices what I’m already good at.”
Rogers spoke with empathy for his young opener, before Chandrasinghe spent the 2023-24 summer on the fringe of the state side as he began to work on expanding his game with more shots.
“There’s a lot of opinion from people who don’t know what the young man has gone through,” Rogers has said. “It’s his first year of Shield cricket, We recognise that there is work to do on his game. He’s completely honest about that.
“So many young guys would get into that position and almost feel a little bit embarrassed and just throw their wicket away. The fact that he fought all the way through and didn’t get out … that determination and to never quit is something in-built. It’s an extraordinary effort, and I’m so proud of him.”
Ashley Chandrasinghe during his patient innings.Credit: Getty Images
In technical terms, Chandrasinghe has worked assiduously on his head position and a related trigger movement, the better to balance him for aggressive shots as well as defensive deflections. But his gear change has come at a time of a wider switch-up for Victoria, too.
At the start of pre-season, the players were told that all members of the squad needed to think of themselves as multi-format players. Partly, this is in line with the global shift towards the T20 franchise circuit, but it is also about closing the gap between the Victorian squad and those of the Stars and Renegades, which have featured remarkably few local contracted players.
Additionally, it has taken a cue from the country’s leading domestic powerhouse. Western Australia’s trophy-laden regime, helmed by coach Adam Voges and high-performance boss Kade Harvey, has been a source of inspiration.
During the winter months, Victoria’s midweek training was dubbed “white-ball Wednesday”, a term first used in New South Wales, while the cadre of players who went to Darwin for the T20 league was chosen liberally enough to include Chandrasinghe.
Rogers has expressed a sense of optimism at Chandrasinghe’s expansion in stroke-making, while also knowing it will take time for him to get the best out of a locker with more shots.
Within Victoria’s program, multiple comparisons have been made between Chandrasinghe and a young Mike Hussey, who was a stodgy opener for Western Australia before gradually expanding his game – one shot a season in essence – to become one of the most versatile players of any era. David Hussey, head of the men’s program, has even shared it with Chandrasinghe.
“He mentioned it last pre-season when I was working on the technical change, and I felt really good about that, hearing it from ‘Huss’ himself,” he said. “But he’s someone I’ve always looked up to, so hearing that from his brother is pretty cool. Maybe that’s what it takes, one shot each winter.
Mike Hussey scoring runs against Sri Lanka in 2007.Credit: Sebastian Costanzo
“One thing we spoke about with ‘Buck’ [Rogers] after my first season with the Vics was the changes we’re going to make are not going to be over a couple of months, it’s going to take maybe two or three seasons to do, which is how it’s looking now. We’re still working on similar things and it’s just progressing slowly. I’m in better shape now than I was last pre-season.
“This technical change is opening up more shots that hopefully I can be comfortable with playing in games and that has to come from trying them in the nets. White-ball Wednesdays helps a lot, because you can’t get out in the nets, so you can try as many things as you want.”
There is another strong thread to Chandrasinghe’s story. His parents migrated to Melbourne from Sri Lanka in the early 1990s. They may even have been in the crowd when Romesh Kaluwitharana signalled a new phase of white-ball batting by clattering Glenn McGrath around the MCG during the World Series Cup, before the 1996 World Cup victory.
In the here and now, Chandrasinghe has spoken on a couple of occasions with Usman Khawaja, and admires the combination of silk and craft in his fellow left-hander’s game. This augurs well for Chandrasinghe’s ultimate goal: to spend long days in the middle with a helmet of Australian green, rather than Victorian blue, on his head.
“He’s been good to have a look at technically as well, so he’s been great to try to maybe model my game off,” he said of Khawaja. “I like the way he goes about it as well, and he’s quite adaptable, which I can hopefully try and create in my own game.
“A lot of players might get tempted with a lot of the franchise cash around, but most guys are still trying to play Test cricket for Australia. That’s the pinnacle of every boy’s childhood dream, and particularly my dream, that’s something I’ll be trying to do.”
Don’t expect Chandrasinghe to be pinging sixes at will anytime soon. But the next time he faces 280 balls, there should be a great many more runs to show for it.
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