NEW DELHI: Having spent a few weeks at the CSK Academy in Chennai last year, 23-year-old New Zealand leg-spinner Adithya Ashok feels he has developed a basic understanding of Indian conditions and is keen to put that learning into action in the upcoming three-match ODI series starting in Baroda on January 11.

Ashok, the latest Indian-origin spinner to don the Black Caps colours, moved to New Zealand from Vellore in Tamil Nadu with his family when he was just four years old.

Deeply attached to his grandfather, Ashok has maintained strong ties with his roots in Tamil Nadu. As a tribute to his late grandfather, he has a tattoo on his bowling arm that reads ‘En vazhi thani vazhi’ in Tamil, meaning ‘my way is a unique way’. The phrase is a famous line from a Rajinikanth film that he watched alongside his grandfather during his final days.

A regular visitor to India, Ashok’s trip last year stood out as he trained at the CSK Academy in Chennai. The stint helped him understand the nuances of Indian pitches, including red-soil and black-soil surfaces, which are vastly different from the pace-friendly wickets he usually bowls on back home.

With the prospect of bowling to Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma in the three-match series, Ashok hopes his Chennai experience proves valuable.

“First of all, just on the experience in Chennai, I was very fortunate to get that opportunity. I am grateful for the opportunity from New Zealand Cricket to send me over there and with a few of our boys and learn,” said Ashok in a select virtual media interaction on Thursday.

“We have a great connection with Sriram Krishnamurthy, who’s obviously the lead there. The things that we learned there were amazing, to be honest. Understanding about potentially how you can go about setting up batters and things like that.”

“There’s a lot of stuff that we learned that was really cool. For example, black soil and red soil and how those pitches behave and things like that. I think those are the big takeaways for me and it’s just kind of building my library as a cricketer which is probably the most important thing.”

Does that stint last year make him more confident heading into the series against India?

“It just gives me a little bit of like a base understanding. I don’t think it sits there and makes you like tick the box and go, okay, sweet, I’m gonna do well or okay, I’ve got this covered or whatever. You just have an understanding of what it might behave like.”

“And I think you give yourself the opportunity to have a bit of experience under your belt and build that library for yourself so that you can recall the experiences and recall the conversations that you had with people and the way that the ball behaved off the surface, things like that.”

“So having been here before, and especially with Sriram (Krishnamurthy) and stuff in Chennai, it only creates a little bit more experience for myself, which I’m very grateful for,” said Ashok.

On his special relationship with fellow leggies

Ashok places the legendary Shane Warne at the top of his list of role models, but closer to home, he leans heavily on Indian-origin leg-spinners Ish Sodhi and Tarun Nethula for guidance.

While Sodhi is set to lead New Zealand’s spin attack at the T20 World Cup, Ashok will need to remain patient for his chances in the shortest format.

“If you ask me who my favorite legspinner of all time is, it’s tough to go past Shane Warne. But growing up in New Zealand, it was really cool to see, I’m really fortunate to have the relationship with him now, but someone like Ish is big for me in terms of being like a big brother.”

“He’s someone that I watched growing up and in high school and intermediate primary school, high school, all of those, trying to watch him play and stuff like that. And another one I was really fortunate to watch is my current mentor Tarun,” said Ashok, who also harbors ambitions of playing Test cricket.

Apart from Nethula, former New Zealand cricketer Paul Wiseman has also played a key role in Ashok’s journey, standing by him during a difficult phase when he suffered a back injury that required surgery — a rare setback for a spinner.

The upcoming ODI series in the country of his birth is expected to further enrich Ashok’s growing experience at the international level.

(With PTI Inputs)