'She's the reason India won': R Ashwin can't stop praising India's breakout bowler from the World Cup

The Times Of India

newspoint|04-11-2025

Former India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has lavished praise on India’s young left-arm spinner Sree Charani for her exceptional performance in the 2025 ICC Women’s World Cup . The 39-year-old veteran believes the youngster has all the makings of a future superstar and broke down the technical brilliance behind her success since debuting for India earlier this year in April.

Charani ended her first-ever ODI World Cup campaign with 14 wickets in nine matches at an average of 27.64, including standout spells in the knockout stages. The 21-year-old held her nerve under pressure, returning figures of 2 for 49 in the semi-final and 1 for 48 in the final, helping India script a historic title win.


“Her ball rotation is at the correct speed. It matches Sophie Ecclestone, Jess Jonassen or Sophie Molineux, her weight transfer. She goes into a lovely side-on position. From there, her hand comes to the front. There is no collapse anywhere. There is no energy leakage,” Ashwin explained on his YouTube channel.

“She crushed the World Cup. She is the biggest reason for India to win this World Cup. She is going to be a superstar bowler in the future,” he added.

Ashwin also drew parallels between India’s 2025 triumph and past landmark victories in Indian cricket, saying that the seeds sown by captain Harmanpreet Kaur and her team will be remembered for generations — just like the iconic World Cup wins under Kapil Dev and MS Dhoni .

“The thing is, coming from a place like this, Harmanpreet Kaur would have seen a lot of disappointments. The 2017 World Cup final, for instance, where they beat Australia and lost to England in the final. Jhulan Goswami was there. Harmanpreet Kaur has seen such things. She has faced defeats. She has seen defeats from situations where the World Cup could have been won. From outside, you may not be witness to the effort she has put in,” Ashwin said.

“The seed she has sown — after 10 or 20 years, how Kapil Dev sowed it, how Dhoni sowed it in 2011 or 2007 — like how we talk about those, we will talk about this as well,” he concluded.
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