Is R Ashwin the best half-sleeved, finger spinner to take 200 Test wickets?

True, there have been some very good offspinners in the past from Erapalli Prasanna to Jim Laker, or Graeme Swann from a more recent vintage, but it’s difficult to see one perched at the top with almost ridiculous stats as Ashwin. The perception about the offspinners was best captured by a cutely condescending quote from the late Martin Crowe. “I never really rated the offspinners. They just came into the hitting zone, which was leg side for me,” he said dismissively when talking in otherwise great detail about how he tackled spin bowling in general. It’s a harsh statement of course, and possibly a comment on the offspinners Crowe came against, but it does reflect a more widespread disdain towards the off-spinning tribe in general.

It’s easy to see why. Without the wrist kicking into action as it does for leggies, you can’t rip the ball as much and should have lesser revolutions on the ball. Even the left-arm spinners have the luxury of taking the ball away from the batsmen, traditionally considered a more worrisome aspect for a batsman. The odds are loaded against the finger spinners, which explains the emergence of modern-day offspinners, after the ending of the era of uncovered pitches, who have had to come up with doosras and carromballs.

It also explains the influx of bowling actions cloaked in full-sleeves. To his credit, Ashwin is the best short-sleeved offspinner of the recent vintage. It’s time he is featured in an advert for smart half-sleeved casuals, taking a crack at the full-sleeved sly men. This particular aspect of bowling action also captures his strong personality in some ways. In March 2014, on a tour of Bangladesh, his tanned right arm couldn’t be seen as it was hidden in full-sleeves for the first time on a cricket field.

“I’d never bowled in full sleeves before, so I wanted to see how it would feel to bowl in full sleeves. Also I just wanted to see if I can get more revs on the ball if I could do little bit with my elbow … why should I lag behind in the advantage when somebody else is getting a competitive edge?” Ashwin said.

Away Debate

It’s not as if the ride to 200 has been always smooth, even if the numbers make it appear so. Every time he had de-hyphenated his name from Harbhajan Singh, his overseas record would slip up, sending critics in a tizzy. The numbers are indeed poor – in nine Tests, spread out over four years from 2011 to 2015, he has averaged 56.58. Undoubtedly, it’s an area he has to step up but a closer analysis through the eyes of expert also throws up technical problems that would creep up in his bowling on travels.

The flaws, and the subsequent course-corrections, also tell the story of Ashwin the evolving bowler.

In 2012, in Australia, Ashley Mallet, a former Australian offspinner, was so unimpressed that he not only found him “ordinary” but also found Harbhajan as “20 % better”. He also explained why. “There is precious little energy through the crease (For Ashwin). He depends greatly on his clever fingers. He gets good purchase on the ball, but his timing has to be spot-on, and he cannot achieve that timing with the help of his action, for there is hardly any energy there at all. There is a total reliance on fingers and wrist and is bowling balls that are either too short, and is not driving the batsmen into making mistakes.”

At the end of 2013, his old coach Sunil Subramaniam also hit out against the ordinariness after a series in South Africa. “Even JP Duminy was getting far more off the pitch than Ashwin in South Africa. There is no body in his action,” Sunil said then.

In 2015, at the end of the World Cup, he spoke about his past mistakes away from home. “I was very raw. All I knew then was to put a lot of revs (revolutions) on the ball and whenever I was in a corner, or under pressure, that’s what I tried to do. Just revv it up. I hadn’t really thought beyond that. Would just try to spin the ball hard. There was this one Test I played in Johannsburg (2013) where I started feeling confident about how I bowled in that Test. I thought I had bowled well.”

It’s an interesting choice of Test to pick as a turn-around game as he was dropped immediately after. In the second innings, in a drawn game, he bowled 36 overs for 83 runs and went wicketless. Somewhere, something had clicked in place in his mind.

It would be interesting to see how he fares now on overseas travels. He has corrected the flaw of over-relying on fingers, and has got his body more into the action in the recent times. In fact, if anything, the correction of these flaws has helped him blossom into a stunning matchwinner even at home.

He has tweaked his run-up, release position, and balance at the time of release. Still, even after a great series against South Africa at home, when he went to Australia immediately, MS Dhoni dropped him in the ODIs. That must have hurt. But again, we need more empirical evidence than just nine Tests to make a proper call.

Pitch Argument

The other chief criticism isn’t about him but about the state of pitches served up at home. Ashwin, and India should realise that the celebratory beer would taste a lot better if the wins were earned on more ‘normal’ pitches than the designer dustbowls.

Such was his control of the art against South Africa last year that it seemed he would have taken as many wickets even on proper wickets but the pitches did undervalue it a bit.

A more nuanced argument could be made about the state of batting in world cricket. Despite frequent subcontinental visits, the batsmanship against the turning ball has been very average. In the decades gone by, too, we have had the likes of Robin Smith, good player of pace but with an alarming vulnerability against spin, but by and large, the top batsmen of the day seemed better batsmen of turn.

Perhaps, all of this has indeed contributed to Ashwin’s meteoric rise but it would be churlish to deny him his stunning achievements. Especially, when his best at home too have come after those humbling overseas series. From June 2015, starting from the Mirpur Test in Bangladesh, he has taken 74 wickets at 19.44 with 9 five-wicket hauls. In his last 11 Tests at home, he has had 9 five-wicket hauls.

Unlike most other spinners going around, Ashwin is more than what he does with the ball. Many have had off-breaks that have spun more than his, had more potent variations, and heck, even possessed more fluidity in flighted deliveries. It’s how he strings them together in a spell, how he thinks out a batsmen, and how his spells have a coherent plan and a claustrophobia-inducing consistency that makes him stand out in recent times.

“I switched my thinking to long spells from focusing on ball after ball – and you still have to focus ball after ball but I am talking about the thinking behind my bowling, the approach. Then you stop trying too many things within an over as the focus is now long-term, on an entire spell. That’ what I have learnt and that’s the thing I should not forget,” he told this paper once.

He is 30 now, young age for spinners in an older era, but in this time and age, despite increasing fitness standards, we don’t really see aging spinners in the circuit. It would be fascinating to see what Ashwin manages to do in the next few years.

Tough challenges await away from home, and an incredible home record to maintain – it’s not going to be easy, but he is certainly in a good frame of mind to take up the battle. “If you are not a force to reckon with, then what’s the point of playing. I just didn’t want to be another member of the squad; I wanted to be a matchwinner.” History is calling, and he has shown so far that he is not only listening, but keenly writing it.