Having spent a couple of weeks at the CSK academy in Chennai last year, 23-year-old New Zealand leg spinner Adithya Ashok has got a base understanding of the Indian conditions and is ready to put that knowledge to test in the three-match ODI series beginning in Baroda on January 11.

Ashok, the latest Indian-origin spinner to represent the Black Caps, moved to New Zealand from Vellore in Tamil Nadu with his family at the age of four.

He was very close to his grandfather and remains connected to his roots in Tamil Nadu. As a tribute to his late grandfather, he got a tattoo inked on his bowling form that reads 'En vazhi thani vazhi' in Tamil (my way is a unique way). It is a famous line from a Rajnikkanth movie that he watched with his ailing grandfather.

Ashok is a frequent visitor to India but last year was special as he got to train at the CSK Academy in Chennai. He learned about the different type of pitches (red soil, black oil) in India while back home he is usually bowling on pace friendly surfaces.

Against the likes of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma in the three match series, Ashok hopes the Chennai experience comes in handy.

"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 going into the 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 Sodhi, Nethula ============================================ Ashok puts the great Shane Warne right at the top when it comes to role models but at home, he has got the likes of Indian-origin leg spinners Tarun Nethula and Ish Sodhi to lean on.

Sodhi will be New Zealand's lead spinner in the T20 World Cup, while Ashok will have to wait for his opportunities in the shortest format.

"If you ask me who my favourite 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 aspires to play Test cricket.

Besdies Nethula, another former New Zealand cricketer Paul Wiseman has been a pillar of support for Ashok and was there by his side when he struggled with a back injury that required a surgery, quite rare for a spinner.

The upcoming three ODIs in the country of his birth can only make him richer in experience. PTI BS ATK

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