His father wanted him to become a fast bowler. His mother wanted to see the Indian Test cap on his head.
The child however aspired to be a footballer and it was never a case of parents thrusting their own anxieties and ambitions onto the child. And then one day in the summer of 1997, a peculiar and equally hilarious incident brought his football career to a hasty conclusion.
He did not sustain any severe injury nor did he get into a spat with any of his classmates while playing an inter-class football game. For the first 88 minutes, he did not make any effort to dribble the ball. He would either head, chest or knee it. The scores were level at 1-1 at that point. In the 89th minute, his side won a penalty and his teammates backed him to thump in one of his trademark cannonballs. On any other day, the boy would have accomplished the task clinically.
He did hit the ball but the manner in which he did that was comical. He ran up, dived to the ground, hit the ball with his head and it meekly dribbled into the hands of the goalkeeper. 1-1 was the final score-line of the game.
Even though the match was planned weeks ago, the boy forgot all about it. He thus wore his brand new pair of black leather shoes to class instead of wearing his tough spikes.
The boy has grown up today- both literally and allegorically. He takes to the lush green field every now on then but with a ball in his hand. Ravichandran Ashwin has convinced millions of Indians about the fact that he is capable enough to carry forward India’s rich legacy of spin bowling, which is gradually turning into a dying art. He is your serious and most outspoken person on the face of the cricketing world, who doesn’t hesitate to call a spade a spade and pass comments like ‘’If patient people had to be good cricketers, then only yogis could have been good cricketers’’.
Today, when it has taken the shape of a herculean task to spot a quality off-spinner who bowls with equal proficiency across all 3 formats of the game, Ashwin stands out.
Cricfit brings forth 5 reasons that explain why the R Ashwin off-spinner from Chennai can be called the best off-spinner in the world today:-
- ALL FORMAT BOWLER
Ashwin burst into the scene in the 3rd edition of the Indian Premier League where he impressed one and all with his economic bowling in the tournament. In Match 48 of that edition, Ashwin bowled a toxic spell of 4 overs (4-0-16-3) on a sluggish Chepauk surface and his heroics with the ball in the first innings helped CSK restrict KKR to a low total of 139/7 from the allotted 20 overs. He scalped the wickets of Chris Gayle, Brendon McCulum and David Hussey, who formed the nucleus of the KKR outfit back in 2010. He was called upon by Captain M.S Dhoni to take the new ball in that game and how well did he respond to the call? His Captain in CSK soon became his Captain in the national side and it is owing to the rapport they share that Dhoni has been able to bring Ashwin into the attack in right situations and at right times; be it in the longer format or the shorter ones. He is a two-time IPL winner, two-time CL T20 champion, World Cup winner, a member of the triumphant Indian team which lifted the ICC Champions Trophy in 2013 and also a member of the Indian team which reached the final of the ICC WT20 in 2014. He also won the Golden Stump award (the award for the highest wicket taker) in the 2nd edition of the CL T20 in South Africa. He is one of those handful cricketers who started their international careers with the shorter format and later made shift to Test cricket. Yet, his Test career appears more glorious than any of his limited-over records. He has represented India in 11 Test series’ till date and has received the Man of the Series award on 4 occasions in Tests. It is a fact that majority of his accolades in white uniform is ascribed to the assistance he gets from sub continental conditions. That said, he has played just 28 Test matches in his career so far and has got enough time to catch up with the statistics on foreign surfaces if he continues to cling to the spectacular form he has exhibited in the last 6 months or so.
Let’s throw a quick glance at a table which compares Ashwin’s track record across all 3 formats of the game.
| FORMAT | T20Is | ODIs | TESTS |
| CAREER STATS | Matches 28, Wickets 29, Bowling Avg.- 26.97, Eco.- 7.24, BBI- 4/11 | Matches 99, Wickets 139, Bowling Avg.- 31.4, Eco.- 4.83, BBI- 4/25 | Matches 28, Wickets 145, Bowling Avg.- 28.44, twelve 5 Wi, three 10 Wi, BBI- 7/103, BBM- 12/85 |
It is pretty evident from the table that Ashwin is an attacking bowler, whose wicket taking prowess has fetched him success in the longer as well as the shorter formats. We spoke a while ago about his impressive Test career. He has also shined in ODIs and T20Is. He has scalped 139 wickets in 99 ODIs as of yet, which accounts for 1.41 wickets per match; a touch below the accepted standard for judging top notch bowlers in the 50 overs format (the ideal wicket/match ratio is 1.5 wickets/match). Even in T20Is, he has taken 29 wickets in similar number of matches. His economy rate in T20Is is 7.24; which is well below the ideal standard in T20Is- 7.50 that is. These stats thus reiterate the point that Ashwin is an ‘all format bowler’.
- BOWLS HIS FULL QUOTA OF OVERS
Nowadays, experts and fans of the game have developed the common notion that once Ashwin bowls his full quota of overs in limited overs cricket, there isn’t anyone in this Indian team who can run through opposition batsmen. This opinion, though presented in good humour does portray a realistic view of India’s fragile bowling unit. In the recently concluded T20I series against South Africa, Ashwin picked up 4 wickets at an average of 12.5 in 2 matches. Despite his valiant act with the ball, the rest of the bowlers failed to replicate the same kind of effort which allowed the visitors to walk away with the series. Off late, Ashwin has been one of the fittest cricketers in the international circuit as he has hardly missed any fixture owing to injuries. His highly commendable level of fitness permits him to bowl his full quota of overs more often than not.
In fact, the offie admits his liking for bowling long spells. In an interview given to Cricket Country in September Ashwin said, ’’I love bowling long spells. I hate the fact that the ball is taken away from me at times’’.
In addition to that, he can open the bowling for his side, bowl during the middle stages of a crunch encounter and also bowl at the death if needed, like he did in the final of the ICC Champions Trophy 2013, where the contest was reduced to a 40 over match because of heavy showers. His 4 overs in T20Is or 10 overs in ODIs thus become very vital for Team India, more so if the others in the bowling department start performing miserably.
In a nutshell, it can be said that India’s dependence on Ashwin, the spearhead of their spin attack in 2015 is comparable with India’s heavy reliance on Tendulkar, the periphery of their batting line up in the early part of the 1990s.
- HAS GOT OVER HIS TENDENCY TO BOWL VARIATIONS EVERY NOW AND THEN
It has been 5 years since Ashwin made his international debut and over the years, he has realised the fact that having too many variations in the armoury may prove to be a double edged sword.
He espoused the carom ball from the streets of Chennai, having been inspired by Sri Lanka’s Ajantha Mendis. Even before Mendis had perplexed the Indians with this delivery in 2008, Ashwin as a 21 year old club cricketer saw him in a game in Chennai and was mightily impressed by this skilful variation.
In today’s day and age, when batsmen have developed a wide array of shots to maul the bowlers, variations have become quintessential features of the game; especially for spinners. But, when a certain delivery meant to be used as a variation takes its toll on your stock off-spin, it is bound to invite trouble to your career. An efficient practitioner of the carom ball, Ashwin started using it sparingly in Test matches as well, which in turn started affecting his performance graph big time. He was unable to take wickets in either format during that phase. Fortunately, he has overcome his habit of bowling frequent variations and considers Bharat Arun to be the man behind his resurgence. In a candid interview given to espncricinfo.com, he said, ‘’When I bowled at Alaistar Cook in 2012 (in the home series against England), I kept dropping the ball a little shorter. I tried too many variations at that time, partly because I didn’t have enough knowledge about my bowling at that time’’. He is a quick learner of the game and his subsequent return to bowling classical off-spin has fetched him unparalleled success in the past 6 months or so. His good form in recent times has forced former players to heap praise on him who until a year back wasted no time in criticising him for his frequent use of variations. ‘’When he (Ashwin) started his career, he bowled with an erect action, which hindered his natural rhythm. Off late, he is forcing the batsmen to play at him rather than baiting them with variations’’, commented legendary Indian off-spinner Erapalli Prasanna. Interestingly, Ashwin broke Prasanna’s record of becoming the fastest Indian to reach 100 Test wickets. The former off-spinner now wants Ashwin to get past Muralitharan’s record of scalping 800 Test victims.
- INTELLIGENT, THINKING AND FEARLESS BOWLER
The best part about Ashwin pertains to his prudent ability to make self-analysis. On the one hand where many cricketers disappear from the international circuit after arousing ample possibilities at the beginning of their individual careers due to lack of knowledge about their own game, Ashwin has managed to come out of the pit of a lean patch, largely because of his aptitude and potential to learn new things at a quick pace. It has happened many a times that Ashwin attended the press-conference in place of his skipper and answered all the questions thrown at him with supreme confidence. His is a good self-examiner, a virtue which becomes evident from statements such as, ‘’I was taught to bowl with a straight arm. So if somebody else gets a competitive advantage and I get to play in the team, it is a problem’’ or ‘’Whatever I gather as momentum of my run-up and my loading is all destined to put the ball into the batsman’s half. So, I translate each bit of the ball before I deliver it’’. He has taken the baton of spearheading the Indian spin department from an ageing Harbhajan Singh. Among his contemporary off-spinners, only Sunil Narine and Nathan Lyon come close to him. Lyon doesn’t feature in limited over fixtures for Australia, whereas Narine hasn’t proved his mettle at the Test level despite getting a few opportunities. This brings us to the certain conclusion that Ashwin holds a definite edge over all his rival off-spinners. No wonder why they call him the most competent heir to Kumble’s throne.
- HAS DISMISSED THE BEST BATSMEN IN THE WORLD CONSISTENTLY
The true pedigree of a bowler lies beyond the dustbowl of stats and figures. Since time immemorial, people have associated the actual calibre of a bowler with his ability to tantalise the best batsmen in business. The likes of James Anderson and Brett Lee dismissed Tendulkar the most number of times in Tests and ODIs respectively, but according to Sachin himself, it was Hansie Cronje who troubled him the most in his career with his dibbly-dobbly medium pace.
The same criterion is applicable in Ashwin’s case as well. There are no two ways about the fact that post Tendulkar’s retirement, Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara and South Africa’s AB de Villiers have stood head and shoulders above the rest. And interestingly, Ashwin has tormented both these batsmen in recent times and that too in the space of just 2 months. While he outfoxed Sangakkara in his farewell series only a month ago, he emulated a similar sort of performance against de Villiers in the recently finished Paytm T20I Series. A quick look at Ashwin’s record against these 2 stalwarts will reveal a more concrete image of the situation.
| Record against Sangakkara (in Tests) | Record against de Villiers (in T20Is) |
| Dismissals- 3 times
Sangakkara’s average against Ashwin- 6.66 (worst against any Indian bowler; minimum of 3 dismissals). Sangakkara also fell prey to Ashwin in 3 innings in a row in the same series. |
Dismissals- 5 times
de Villers’ average against Ashwin- 12.40 de Villiers’ S/R against Ashwin- 105.80 |
These are no ordinary figures. Any bowler boasting of such stats should hold himself in immense regard. Ashwin’s menace has gradually started creeping into the minds of rival batsmen, regardless of opposition coaches’ denial of any such issue. Although South Africa’s coach Russell Domingo feels that Ashwin’s exploits will fade away as the series progresses, the stats depict a different picture.
For Ashwin, cricket is not a mere source of earning living unlike some of his compatriots. It’s his life. He plays the game in the right spirit; in which the gentlemen’s game is meant to be played. While many are projecting him as a possible candidate for India’s captaincy in the future, this gentleman pays little or no heed to such future oriented estimations. ‘’Ten years down the line, I want to be remembered as the player who devoted his cent per-cent effort to his beloved game’’, says Ashwin, who is spinning his way to glory with each passing game..