Ravichandran Ashwin bowls a delivery.
| Photo Credit: AP
Ravichandran Ashwin, a colossus in Indian cricket, hung up his kit bag and called it quits in international cricket after a stellar career on Wednesday, just as the third Test between Australia and India in Brisbane petered out to a draw. This article will focus only on his Test record.
Ashwin’s retirement announcement meant that he finished as the seventh-highest wicket-taker in Tests (537 wickets) at a stellar average (runs per wicket) of 24 and a strike rate (SR, deliveries bowled per wicket) of 50.7. He also scored 3,503 runs at an average of 25.75. Only his former Indian coach Anil Kumble managed a higher wicket tally (619) and only 20 Indian batsmen scored more Test runs than him, indicating his strong all-round ability and performance in cricket’s classical version.
Sri Lanka’s M. Muralitharan (800), Australia’s Shane Warne (708), and Kumble (619) finished with more wickets than Ashwin but the Tamil Nadu player and Chennai-born spinner played fewer matches compared to the other three. With 37 five-wicket-hauls-in-an-inning and eight 10-wicket-hauls-in-a-match, Ashwin was not far behind Warne’s 37 5-fers and 10 10-fers, but this statistic was dominated by Muralitharan, who finished with 67 5-fers and 22 10-fers.
Where does Ashwin rank among the all-time best bowlers? As Chart 1 shows, Ashwin’s SR of 50.7 was the top of the pops among spinners (who picked up at least 250 wickets). No other spinner, except for Muralitharan, came close.
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Table 1 shows the spinners with 250 or more wickets, ordered on overall SR.
Ashwin’s phenomenal record in the subcontinent (India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, he did not play in Pakistan), where he picked up a whopping 433 wickets at a SR of 45.8 and an average of 21.76 (second only to Muralitharan’s 21.69), helped him register a great overall SR. This is despite a somewhat less sterling 70.8 SR in venues not friendly to spin in other countries, such as South Africa, England, Australia, New Zealand, and West Indies.
Also read: Ravichandran Ashwin’s 100th test: Journey to 500 wickets | Infographics
Ashwin was a match-winner for India and among the team’s most consistent performers in an era when the Indian team dominated Test cricket, especially at home. He won 11 Man of the Series awards in the 44 series he played. Muralitharan also won 11 such awards, but he played in 61 series.
His phenomenal rate of wicket-taking ensured he was always among the fastest to reach various milestones in Test cricket, as Table 2 shows.
He still holds the record for being the fastest to the milestone of 300 wickets in Test cricket (54 matches), and only Muralitharan bests him in later milestones (400 plus onwards).
Ashwin’s batting has been an underrated ability and one of the reasons he has won several Man of the Series awards has been his ability to score vital runs as a lower-order batsman. Along with spin twin Ravindra Jadeja, Ashwin not only formed a strong spin tandem but their batting prowess strengthened the batting lineup, pulling the team out of many a batting crisis.
Chart 2 plots all-rounder cricketers’ (those who have scored at least 2,000 runs and captured at least 150 wickets in Test) batting and bowling averages (reversed).
Ashwin falls under the category of “bowling all-rounders” who could score decent runs and were outstanding bowlers including stalwarts such as Richard Hadlee, Shaun Pollock, Wasim Akram, and Chaminda Vaas.
Also watch: R. Ashwin’s career highlights | Video
Another attribute of Ashwin that sets him apart from other bowlers — his hegemony over left-handed batsmen. Nearly 50% of all his wickets were that of left handed batters (Table 3).
srinivasan.vr@thehindu.co.in
Published – December 19, 2024 11:43 am IST