A batter who turned into a spinning great

Only 13 Indian cricketers have played 100 or more Tests as R Ashwin joins a select band.

Dharamsala: The ongoing Test series against England has been an emotional rollercoaster ride for R Ashwin. He was nowhere near Ashwinesque in the first two Tests in Hyderabad, which India lost, and Visakhapatnam, which India won, even as the visiting spinners outbowled him. And that's saying something.

In the third Test in Rajkot, the off-spinner reached a personal milestone of 500 Test wickets in his 98th Test but had to fly back to Chennai the same evening after a health emergency to his mother. He finally came into his own in England's second innings in Ranchi where he bagged his first fifer of the series as India wrapped up the series 3-1 with a match to go in Dharamsala. 

Ashwin's fifer and India's win meant normalcy had been restored. It's a routine you never get bored of, just as how you never tire of listening to an old classic. Part of the "problem" with performers like Ashwin or (before him) Anil Kumble is that they set such high standards that expectations become unreasonable.

So, whenever they underperform, which is but a natural phenomenon in every athlete's career, we tend to judge them by different yardsticks. It's both a compliment and a curse but it depends on how equanimous you remain through thick and thin that defines your career. On the cusp of his 100th Test here on Thursday, Ashwin's career, through its dizzying highs and demoralising lows, is a shining example of precisely that.

Just to put that achievement in perspective, only 13 Indian cricketers have played 100 or more Tests. Among them, only four bowlers have had that badge of honour. Quantity doesn't mean quality but in team sport, they are both intertwined. A longer career means a better body of work. Ashwin certainly can have his claim to that. 

Not bad for someone who is branded as a T20 (read IPL) product, right? Wrong. To reduce arguably India's finest off-spinner to essentially an Indian Premier League product would be a monumental error in judgement but that's just the influence of the T20 behemoth.

Let's look at these numbers before we conclude one way or the other. Ashwin had played 20 first-class matches and taken 80 wickets at an average of 27.46 and 26 List A matches for 32 wickets for Tamil Nadu before he played his first IPL match for CSK in 2009.

"...It is more of a lack of understanding when you say that I came through the T20 format," said Ashwin, who takes no prisoners, at Tuesday’s press conference. "I had a good 30-40 matches in first-class cricket before I made it to the Indian team. In the same year I made my Test debut, I got a fifer for Rest of India in the Irani Cup. I had played 3-4 seasons of club cricket in Chennai. You might say there's a standard difference, but I played 3-4 years of club cricket there, probably mentored by seniors, who told me where I made mistakes, corrected my discipline, and bowled long spells. Been there all three days, batted and bowled. It really builds your resolve as a cricketer when you do all those things. T20 happened by accident. I didn't know what T20 cricket was like. Played SMAT (Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy) in 2008 for the first time, we were the winners. Got a CSK contract, which also happened because I got a fifer in a 50-over game playing club cricket in Chennai," he elaborated.

With 507 sticks and many more to come, Ashwin has the potential to overtake Kumble (619) as India's highest Test wicket-taker but that's far from a given. But then again, not bad for someone who wanted to be a batter but is one of India's greatest match-winners with the ball. Would he have bargained for this when he started his career? 

While the 37-year-old was unsure about what he would have bargained for, he revealed that he had derived more satisfaction from the number of runs he has scored!

That's Ashwin being Ashwin. Like when he said how he never wanted to encounter S Badrinath, Rajat Bhatia and Mithun Manhas, who according to him were three of the best players of spin he had bowled to! 

"I would've probably worked a little harder on my batting," he noted. "Maybe a few thousand runs more. I have put in the effort. I wouldn't shirk away and say I didn't put in the effort and things haven't worked for me or something like that. I have consistently put in the efforts with the bat. From someone who couldn't clear the 30-yard circle when I started playing T20 cricket in 2008 or 07, I've come a long way. I’ve won games with the bat, I've hit sixes in crucial stages of the game. That's something that will make me proud. Not the number of wickets, or number of runs or number of games."

Ashwin also spoke of remaining uncomfortable, "more so if you're an Indian international cricketer."

You don't have to be a shrink to understand what Ashwin meant to say. Ashwin did admit to being at the right place at the right time for where he is today, but even he couldn't escape the spectre of omission in overseas Tests when India played only one spinner even though he was the better of the tweakers.

"The only way you can find an answer for that is if you had a time machine, me playing and then whether the result would've been different," he began. "It's always disappointing not to play a particular game for your country when you know you're bowling well and all that. Again, I would definitely make peace with it saying the team definitely took the decision in the best interest of the team. I don't think any captain or any coach really wants to leave out a player who is really of use in that particular game. From their perspective, they would've thought they made the best decision at that point of time. Even though you're disappointed, you'll have to come around to the fact that it is a team game and sometimes maybe someone else will play that game. Look, not a lot of teams around the world have what India has. The person who is taking my place is Ravindra Jadeja. He's been batting pretty well, as you see his averages with the bat. That's where he outscored me in those games. The team believes that he's been batting pretty well and bowling might not be that much of a factor because of the pitches we might play on in England and sometimes in SA. Yeah, so I'd say I'd make peace with that."

Three memorable spells

When you finish it is Test wins that stand really tall. But having given it a lot of thought one of the finest spells I have bowled has to be the one in Birmingham in 2018. I got three wickets on the morning of day three. I got (Alastair) Cook (Joe) Root and (Keaton) Jennings. I got seven wickets in the game. I felt like I had almost bowled India to victory in the game but it didn't happen. That has to be one of the finest spells I have bowled.

A Test in Bangalore (against Australia in 2017) where I bowled a spell on Day two morning not for many rewards.

And Day 1 at Centurion in 2018 again against South Africa. I got a four-for. It could have been six or seven but it didn't happen. That was a good spell. Those are three spells that will stand out. There are several fifers and wins that have happened over the years but these are the spells I will remember for how it came out of the hand what it meant personally.