Ash and Abilities/Traits

[Crankyman]

I was watching the Oreburgh arc, and everyone remembers how Paul used his Elekid's Static on the Onix, right? Why didn't Ash use his Pikachu's Static? Is he clueless when it comes to his own Pokemon's abilites? I only remember him telling Grovlye to use Overgrow once. But then, I missed a lot of episodes.

 

[Cybersai]

They don't really seem to go into abilities all that much. There were times where Grovyle used Overgrow and so forth, but it rarely happened.

 

[Duckgon Z]

Well, you have to remeber that Ash's Pokemon were wiped from the battle with Craniados in the first battle, so Pikachu may have been too wiped to use Static on Onix. For the second time, he didn't need to use Static, he w because the was using Dawn's spinning dodge technique. In D/P, PUSA is really handling everyone's abilites pretty well. 4Kids messed up on those, making it sound like the ability was only for the Pokemon that was currently in battle. Maybe they thought it was too "complicated" to explain.

 

[Sushi]

Or maybe it's because you cannot "tell" a Pokémon to use its ability. Just like in the games, Static only has a slight chance to come into effect when the opponent makes physical contact with the Pokémon.

So Paul had a bit of luck when Elekid's Static paralyzed Onix. There was one time in Ash's rematch at Oreburgh where Pikachu's Static had come into effect as well, but unfortunately that was on Rampardos who had Mold breaker to negate other Pokémon's abilities.

In short: neither Ash nor any other trainer has control over when abilities like Static and Overgrow will work. I assume you mixed something up there because in none of the examples you listed - Elekid's Static, Grovyle's Overgrow - the abilities were activated upon the trainer's order, they all came randomly without Paul/Ash telling them to do anything.

 

[Crankyman]

Nope, in the battle against Norman, Grovyle is told to use it.