R Ashwin: The off-spinner who extricated his craft from the web of doosras and mystery deliveries
In the grand pantheon of India’s spinners, Ravichandran Ashwin would inhabit a rarified space, all unto himself. There have been wizards and magicians, artists and artisans, but few explored the craft with the zeal of a scientist, the curiosity of a child, or the industry of a sculptor like Ashwin. He was the greatest off-spinner his country has seen — and among the finest the world has produced, rubbing shoulders with Muttiah Muralitharan and Jim Laker, Harbhajan Singh and Ashwin’s own contemporary Nathan Lyon.
His biggest legacy — apart from the numerical peaks — was how he re-instilled the lost mystique to the art form. He did not glamorise the field like Shane Warne did leg-spin, or romanticise it like Muralitharan, or revolutionise it like Saqlain Mushtaq, but he instilled the soul ba...