Ashwin: May not be the greatest Indian spinner, but certainly most effective

Where does Ravi Ashwin figure in the pantheon of Indian spin bowling greats? It will be a favourite topic over the next few days for cricket writers now that the spin ace has called time on his international career, and also the galaxy of names who shine in Indian cricket folklore.

The quartet of Bedi-Prasanna-Chandra-Venkat, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, Ashwin and his partner-in-crime Ravindra Jadeja — it’s a daunting list. Not to speak of the legends of yesteryears such as leg-spinner Subhas Gupte — whom Freddie Trueman once rated higher than Shane Warne — or allrounder Vinoo Mankad, whose names don’t resonate that strongly with current fans.

The legacy that Ashwin leaves, despite being an ‘accidental spinner’ who started as an opening batter and medium pacer, is simply extraordinary in terms of strike rate, consistency and all round skillsets. This alone would have been enough to place him at par with the greats mentioned above, but this is a discussion about their pedigree as spinners rather than batting or cricketing acumen on the whole.

A bit of number-crunching shows how Ashwin became India’s most prolific matchwinner since Kumble's retirement in 2008. A haul of 537 wickets makes him the seventh highest wicket-taker in Tests overall, second only to Kumble’s 619 wickets among Indians, while his 765 wickets across formats is again bettered only by the Bangalorean’s 953. In fact, Kumble had often said it would be a matter of time for Ashwin to reach the 600-mark if he played on.

Not many will remember that Ashwin actually took his last bow in the Test arena after impressing in white-ball cricket and then, believe it or not, was the fastest to reach the 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 350, 400, 450 and 500-wicket milestones for India in terms of matches played. If that’s not enough, just consider the fact that he has a strike rate of 50.7 balls per wicket — which puts him in the top 10 among the 84 bowlers to have picked up at least 200 Test wickets.  

Given the volume of wickets that both Kumble and Ashwin boast of, it’s but natural that they would be compared most frequently. Their similarity lies in the fact that unlike Bedi & Co., neither of them started as classical spinners but developed their art on the job, as it were.

Kumble was also a medium pacer in his early days, and despite being a wrist spinner, was never a big turner of the ball. However, he was perfectly aware of his limitations and took all criticism in his stride, compensating for his lack of turn with a nagging line, variations of pace, the mix of googly and the straighters.

This made him virtually impossible to hit off, as he continued to play the stock bowler for India. An argument often made against Kumble and Ashwin is that both needed the slow and low turners of the subcontinent and could not replicate the same success rate in the SENA countries.

Ashwin, for example, captured 383 of his Test wickets at home and the remaining 154 abroad (works out to around 30 per cent), something which worked against him when it came to selecting playing XIs for overseas Tests in recent years.

Compare this to someone like Erapalli Prasanna, whose 8/76 versus New Zealand in 1976 still remains the best bowling figure in an innings abroad by an Indian bowler. The thought of a finger spinner claiming 24 wickets in a series in New Zealand in the 1970s seems a pipe dream, but then there is no questioning Prasanna’s mastery over flight and the art of deception.  

Bishan Bedi, arguably considered the greatest of the original ‘Fab Four’, had six five-wicket hauls overseas, while the enigmatic Chandrashekhar famously ripped England apart at The Oval in 1971 to put India on the road to its first series win in that country.

While there is no case for Ashwin to claim that he is a better finger spinner than perhaps even Harbhajan Singh (417 wickets), one has to laud the way he found a way around it. Realising that he does not have a big turn, Ashwin used the crease effectively, acquired an arm ball, and later developed a carrom ball which went the other way to reap rich dividends.

The fact that he has dismissed 268 left-handers during his career as an off spinner — which included some of the best in the business like Alastair Cook (nine times), Ben Stokes (13) or David Warner (11) — showed he had done his homework well. To sum it up, ‘Ash’ may not have been the greatest, but he was certainly the most efficient Indian spinner. He deserves a big hand!

ASHWIN IN FIGURES  

In Tests: 537 wickets from 106 Tests (seventh highest in Test cricket)  

Five-wicket hauls: 37 in all, tied in second spot with Shane Warne; behind Muttiah Muralitharan (67). Scored a century and had a five-wicket haul in same Test four times, only behind Ian Botham (5).  

Player of the series: 11 times, jointly on top with Muralitharan  

In ODIs: 156 wkts from 116 matches  

In T20s: 72 wickets in 65 games

Honours: Arjuna award (2015); ICC Men’s Cricketer of the Year & ICC Men’s Test Cricketer of the Year (2016)

Named in ICC Test Team of the Decade, 2011-20