Ravichandran Ashwin on Friday said he has liberated himself from the clutches of external and internal pressure, and now he is just looking to play cricket "with a smile on face." Ashwin made a back-on-the-wall hundred on the first day of the opening Test here against Bangladesh to rescue India from a precarious 144 for six in the company of an equally resolute Ravindra Jadeja.
The 38-year-old leveraged on that innings to drive home the point that he now only responds to pressure situations on a cricket field, unlike in the past when he reacted to every needle-point. "I do enjoy and embrace pressure.
There's no doubt about it. It does give you opportunities to be able to be pushed to a corner and then try and respond. But I was critical too, earlier (of himself and others), because a lot of pressure has been put on me by people.
I've put pressure on myself," Ashwin told reporters on Friday. "The pressure I've always responded to - in answering someone, in a performance or in a press conference.