On Christmas Day, Ravichandran Ashwin’s 42-run knock was crucial in preventing an embarrassing defeat for India in the second test match against Bangladesh. Chasing a tricky target of 145, India fell to 74/7 before Ashwin and Shreyas Iyer shepherded the side to victory. Ashwin finished the game with 6 wickets and a match-winning performance with the bat. The fact that Ashwin is one of the greatest red-ball bowlers ever is undeniable. The fact that he is more than a capable batter is also well-known. But amidst the everydayness of his cricketing genius over the past decade, it is easy to lose perspective on just how great an all-around talent Ashwin has been, and just how rare it is to have all his skill sets in one cricketer. The Indian Express takes a look. IPL find-turned-test bowler par excellence Ashwin entered the India set-up after an impressive showing in the 2010 IPL for Chennai Super Kings. Early on, many looked at him as a white-ball “novelty spinner” but years of experience in the Ranji Trophy and an erudite cricketing brain brought him an instant success in the longer format after he made his debut in 2011. In 88 test matches he has played, he has bowled 3929 overs (averaging almost 45 overs a game), taking 449 wickets at an average of 24.3 (better than Shane Warne) and a strike rate of 52.5 (better than Muthiah Muralidaran). His record in the subcontinent is even more phenomenal – in 60 matches in Asia, he has taken 362 wickets at an average of 21.44. Ashwin’s bowling genius lies in his meticulous study of the game and constant innovation. As his childhood coach S Subramaniam once said in an interview, “what struck me was his intelligence. His use of angles, length and width of the crease. Also, guessing what a batsman was likely to do.” In his career, Ashwin has won nine player of the series awards, second only to Muralidaran’s 11. He has dominated world cricket with his off-spin, becoming arguably India’s greatest test match bowler of all time. Going past legends India has produced some legendary spinners over the years, from the 1970s quartet of Bedi, Chandrashekhar, Prasanna and Venkatraghavan, to Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble. Ashwin has successfully followed the footsteps of these stalwarts and arguably eclipsed them. While he may never play enough to catch up with Kumble’s wicket tally, he boasts of a far superior average and strike rate than the former India captain (619 wickets @ average 29.6 and s/r 66). His overall record has long passed Harbhajan's. With respect to the legendary quartet, he has played more than all of them and still has a better record to boast of. While it is hard to definitively compare a modern-day multi-format player to cricketers from the 1970s, to call Ashwin India’s best-ever test bowler is arguably fair. Ashwin the batter Ashwin has always fancied himself as a batter, batting in the top order during his school days. In his test career, he has amassed 3043 runs with five centuries and 13 fifties at an average slightly higher than 27. These are very good numbers for a player who has batted at numbers 8 and 9 in nearly 70 per cent of his innings. Arguably, he has batted too low down the order for most of his career. In fifteen innings he has played at number 6, he has an average of 35.4 with two centuries and two fifties, numbers worthy of a solid middle-order batter. Ashwin’s batting combines grit with game intelligence – he protects his wicket when he has to and attacks the suitable matchups when they arrive. While he had a dip in batting form post-2016, in the last two years he has shown his class once again, playing crucial match-winning (or saving) knocks in the subcontinent and abroad. In the famous draw against Australia in Sydney in 2021, Ashwin, experiencing back spasms, faced 128 balls from a potent Australian attack. He scored 39 runs and survived with the hobbling Hanuma Vihari, saving the test match for India through sheer strength of will. Ashwin’s innings against Bangladesh earlier today were qualitatively different. While he showed his grit when he came in, as India got closer to the target, he began attacking the Bangladeshi bowlers, ending the game with a flurry of boundaries. Putting Ashwin’s record in perspective Most all-rounders in cricket have a dominant skill, with their other skill being handy enough for their team to consistently rely on them. Ashwin falls in the cream of this category. He is one of the best bowlers of all time and is more than a reliable lower-order batter. Among the eight bowlers in test cricket history with more wickets than Ashwin, the next best batter is probably Stuart Broad (with an average of 18, almost 10 less than Ashwin). Further, all eight players have two centuries between them (Broad and Anil Kumble). Ashwin has five. Among all-rounders, Ashwin is the second quickest to 400 wickets and 3000 runs (he got to 3000 runs today, in his 88th game), with only the great Richard Hadlee quicker (83 games). Ashwin reached this milestone 15 and 27 games ahead of Shaun Pollock and Kapil Dev respectively. Ashwin also has the same number of centuries as Andrew Flintoff, the gold standard of modern all-rounders, while being a much better bowler overall. These statistics show just how rare a commodity someone like Ashwin is. To have mastery over one craft while also being above average in the other is more uncommon than people realise. Ashwin would comfortably be in the highest echelon of players courtesy only of his bowling. His batting takes him to the top of the top.
