Professor hangs up his coat

As Indian and Australian players parked themselves in the dressing room amid rain, a clipped video from the live telecast of the third Test went viral. In the video, Virat Kohli was seen affectionately hugging R Ashwin, leading to speculations that the off-spinner could end his career.

The suspense and speculations were finally put to rest when India’s second most prolific wicket-taker in Tests, behind the great Anil Kumble, announced his retirement from international cricket in a brief statement to the media.

Sitting next to skipper Rohit Sharma after India managed to save the third Test here on Wednesday, Ashwin said it was the “last day” for him as an international cricketer.

“This will be my last year as an Indian cricketer in all formats at the international level,” he began as he tried to hide his emotions with some humour. “I do feel there is a bit of a punch left in me as a cricketer but I would like to expose and probably showcase that in club level cricket but this will be the last day (in international cricket),” he added without taking any questions from the media.

With that one line, one of cricket’s storied careers came to an end. While there was an element of surprise, not least the timing, it wasn’t hard to understand Ashwin’s decision.

He had been playing second fiddle to Ravindra Jadeja in overseas (read as England, Australia and South Africa) series where a second spinner is a liability. With Jadeja’s superior batting abilities giving him an edge, Ashwin ended up sitting out more games than he actually played.

In the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy series as well, the doors were shut on him for the Melbourne and Sydney Tests after Jadeja played a stellar role with the bat to help India save the third Test here.

India’s next Test series is in England next year in June and there was a reasonable chance that he would have been overlooked for the tour with Washington Sundar emerging as a viable younger option.

Though he remained a numero uno force at home, India are scheduled to host a Test only next October, a good 10 months from now by which time Ashwin would have turned 39.

Given the circumstances, it was a hard but sensible call. But the game will miss one of its more erudite cricketers because of what he brought to the table.

With a love for the game that bordered on the obsessive, Ashwin invested himself in constantly innovating, not just to stay relevant in the game but to expand his own bowling horizons.

When he spoke about spin bowling it sounded more of a physics project than a form of art. Words like trajectory, revs, drift, propulsion and angles were thrown around freely, mirroring his engineering background.

For someone who started as a batter in age-group tournaments, Ashwin’s rise as an off-spinner was as remarkable as it was fruitful. While his six Test centuries were a fair reflection of his early initiation into batting, his keen cricketing mind was perhaps more suited to the more complex aspect of the game. And the numbers do speak of his greatness -- (572 Test wickets, 156 in ODIs and 72 in T20Is) in his chosen vocation.

Ashwin will go down as India’s biggest match winner of his generation at home but he didn’t quite match the expected standards of him in overseas Tests.

He had a less than impressive tally of 40 wickets in Australia (11 Tests), 18 in England (7 Tests) and 11 in South Africa (7 Tests) and perhaps the reason why he lost his position to Jadeja.

But then Ashwin formed a deadly combination with Jadeja in home Tests, though the two were as different as the chalk is from the cheese.