Ravichandran Ashwin was never your average international cricketer. He was technically sound, constantly evolving and experimenting, always perfecting his craft and an instinctive tactician who surprises his adversaries on the field. Beyond the record numbers and services rendered to the Indian team, the tactician in him could have grown into an immaculate strategist had India’s cricket administrators tried him out as a captain. Advancing age, the need to make way for the next generation talent and some recent unsatisfactory outings might have driven his retirement decision. However, Ashwin’s potential – as a sportsman, commentator, potential coach and selector/administrator – needs to be harnessed by the Indian cricket.
Indian cricket is known for churning out spin bowlers from the time the national side started playing Test cricket. A major factor behind the ‘spin factory,’ of course, is the surfaces on offer in India and, in the larger context, across the subcontinent, be it Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh etc., all of which support this form of bowling.
Spin bowling is an art in itself requiring lots of patience, guile and variations in the way the ball is delivered. The forms of spinning bowling include off-spin, left-arm orthodox spin and wrist spin.
India's legendary spin quartet – Erapalli Prasanna and Srinivas Venkataraghavan (off spinners), Bhagwat Chandrasekhar (leg spinner), and Bishen Singh Bedi (a left-arm spinner) – used to be such effective match winners in 1970s. They were succeeded by the likes of Anil Kumble (1990-2008), and later Harbajan Singh (1998-2016).
Anil Kumble was a wrist spinner who used to rule the roost over teams visiting India with the touring batsmen hardly used to any relief when he bowled. Subsequently, Kumble improved a lot in overseas conditions too contributing to some memorable wins.
When Kumble retired in 2008 and Harbhajan Singh, the off-spinner, was also heading into the final phase of his career, India needed a spin mainstay and a lethal one at that who could bowl out the opposition on a regular basis. This is when Ravichandran Ashwin came to the fore, making his Test debut in Nov 2011.
By then, Ashwin had already made his debut in limited-overs cricket, including the successful one-day international (ODI) World Cup campaign earlier in 2011.
A dream debut…
Ashwin’s debut was against the visiting West Indies team. He took 9 wickets on debut including 6 wickets in the 2nd innings and was declared the player of the match. His first series is also remembered for his batting as he made a superb century in the third Test which ended in a draw and scores level (something rare in this format).
The exemplary performance with both ball and bat in his debut test series earned him the player of the match as well as the series awards.
The off-spinner continued to impress and grow rapidly in Indian cricket mainly with the ball and adding many variations to his arsenal. Having aspired to become a batsman in his younger cricketing days, the innate skill revealed in Ashwin’s outings with the bat, making crucial runs, numerous centuries and being involved in critical partnerships which resulted in not just wins, but also crucial draws on occasions when the team was staring at defeats.
Spin bowling works in partnerships especially in the Indian sub-continent, as was displayed by the spin quartet in the 1960s and 1970s, and lately by the Ashwin-Ravindra Jadeja camaraderie.
And a spectacular career…
Ashwin’s records speak for themselves: 537 wickets at an average of 24, 37 times taking five or more wickets in an innings, and 8 times 10 or more wickets in a match in a career span of 13 years. When you add the fact that he made 3,503 runs at an average of 25 with 6 hundreds and 14 times past the 50-run mark, largely batting at either 8 or 9 in the batting order, Ashwin stands out not just as a world-class spinner but a masterful all-rounder.
He also holds the record of 11 player-of-the-series in international test cricket.
The ace off-spinner’s artistry with the ball, including his mastery of the ‘carrom ball’ redefined off-spin bowling, and has inspired the new generation of players all over the world. How he bamboozled left-handed batsmen, in particular, was a sight indeed.
Although his Test career ended with almost an equal number of wickets of both right- and left-handed batsmen, Ashwin has the highest strike rate against left-handed batsmen when compared with other bowlers with more than 400 wickets.
In fact, there are comparisons galore of Ashwin’s performance with his spinning contemporaries and also glorious predecessors. An oft-repeated comparison is of Ashwin with Anil Kumble, particularly after Ashwin’s breach of 500 test wickets earlier this year.
Kumble continues to be the highest Indian wicket-taker – with 619 test wickets in 132 matches/236 innings and 337 wickets in 271 ODI matches as opposed to Ashwin's 537 Test wickets in 106 matches and 200 innings, and 156 ODI wickets in 116 matches. Kumble had many more matches in his kitty that propelled the numbers, while Ashwin had to call it quits before reaching those match numbers.
Yet, Ashwin excelled over his legendary predecessor on many counts: he surpassed Kumble's tally of 350 test wickets in India with a tally of 354 on home soil. Ashwin has 35 five-wicket hauls along with Kumble, with only Muthiah Muralidaran (67), Shane Warne (37) and Richard Hadlee (36), ahead of them. Ashwin is the only Indian bowler with 27 five-wicket hauls at home, with only Muralidharan ahead of him with 45 five-wicket hauls in his home country.
Ashwin also went past Harbhajan Singh’s 86 wickets against Australia with his 91 test wickets against England at home, the most by an Indian bowler against any opponent. He also is sharing with Kumble and Shane Warne the second-most five-wicket hauls in the third innings of a Test match, with 12 wickets, while Muralidharan leads at 21.
Ashwin - the cricketing connoisseur…
Ashwin started in his teens as a medium pacer and batsman, but on the advice of his then coach switched to off spin. That paid off well in the long term. With an enduring mastery of off-spin when combined with the natural abilities he had with the bat, a world-class allrounder was born.
The Chennai-born is very much a student and teacher of the game. Any player must be a constant learner and Ashwin was no exception. His keen observation of the game and sporting intellect is evident from his commentary and analyses, which he publishes on his YouTube channel as well as his Twitter (now X) handle – a rare feature seen for currently capped players, representing the national side or even playing first-class cricket.
Through such outreach, Ashwin constantly engages with a viewer base by conversing about the game, providing commentaries on particular cricketing events, and giving out knowledge on various aspects of the game and different players. Through his channels, Ashwin expresses his views – akin to providing a parallel commentary – on live matches involving other cricketing nations, the tactics of playing teams, the performance of each player, and so on.
This enhances the engagement of viewers and followers of the game to another level, further adding to his reputation and fan following.
We can recall his blunt takes on the “Mankad” incidents (wherein the non-striker tries to take an unfair advantage before the ball is released and hence the bowler can under the laws of the game run him out). He did the same in an IPL game against an English player and lots of “controversies” arose from the English media.
However, Ashwin stood his ground and whenever such incidents happen in any part of the world, he is seen upholding the right of the fielding side for effecting the ‘Mankad.’
The captain not to be…
Only a fighter pilot, they say, becomes the chief of the Indian Air Force (IAF). In Indian cricket, it is always the star batsman or the wicket-keeper batsman who is preferred as the foremost captaincy choice.
After Kapil Dev, no other frontline bowler has donned the captaincy, as the mainstay, until Kumble took over in 2007, though star batsmen including Ravi Shastri, Sachin Tendulkar and Saurav Ganguly – all of whom were stand-in bowlers – formed the elite club of allrounder captains.
Kumble, who was handed over the captaincy in November 2007 after 17 years in international cricket and the first leg-spinner to don the role, led the national side for exactly a year until his retirement in November 2008. Though he captained only 14 tests with 3 wins, 6 draws and 5 losses, Kumble’s time at the helm was noted for his leadership, tactics and technical mastery.
While comparisons galore have been made of Kumble and Ashwin, with both having similar cricketing styles and trajectories, many have felt that Ashwin, with his sporting intellect, strategizing mind and technical skills, was inherent captaincy material.
Being a keen reader and student of the game, few would doubt Ashwin’s ability to transform into an effective leader and strategist of the game. However, the established convention that only the leading batsmen of a side are best suited to lead the team seems to have influenced captaincy choices.
Awaiting new avatars
Despite calling it quits from international cricket, Ashwin will play for Chennai Kings in IPL 2025 and maybe many more seasons to come as he declares that the “cricketer in him is not done yet.” However, there are many cricketing roles destined to open up for this thinker-strategist sportsman, including as a commentator, a future coach, and maybe even a selector or cricket administrator.
Having run a well-watched YouTube channel, Ashwin is already a professional commentator and analyst of the game and could be expected to be heard and seen soon among the legion of cricket commentators. Besides his deep knowledge of the game, his ability to engage with the audience will likely greater creativity in the realm of sports commentary.
The Indian team management from the Kohli-Shastri, Sharma-Dravid to the now Sharma-Gambhir eras have had different thoughts when picking the playing 11 in overseas Test matches, especially in England, Australia and South Africa. Their peculiar choices, possibly personal preferences and the assumed plan to nurture new talent might have resulted in Ashwin being left out quite often, and having to carry the drinks.
This eventually could have resulted in his retirement decision, in the middle of a crucial overseas series, which could determine India’s place in the World Test Championship. The fact that another off-spinner and a utility batsman in Washington Sundar also has made a few good strides in Test cricket might have enabled him to come to this decision.
Ashwin, though, deserved a grand farewell, ideally in front of his home crowd, for the enormous services he has done to Indian cricket.
