Beware Murali, Ravi Ashwin is racing to landmark 350
Indian needs 27 more wickets in next six Tests to become the quickest to milestone
Last week at Edgbaston, Ravichandran Ashwin silenced his critics in no uncertain manner. Not only did he pick seven wickets, but he dismissed Alastair Cook, by far England’s best player of spin in decades, twice in two innings with classic off-spinners.
He beat Cook first in the air and then off the pitch, the first landing on the middle, the second on the leg, both knocking back the off stump, laying claim to the new ‘Ball of the Century’ honour that has long rested with Shane Warne.
Notwithstanding Virat
Kohli’s magnificent knock, if it had not been for Ashwin picking the wickets of Cook, Jennings and Root in quick succession, India would not have come as close. The fact that India lost will rankle, but the quality of Ashwin’s bowling will give fans much to look forward in the coming weeks.
In 59 Tests, Ashwin’s tally stands at 323 wickets. He needs 27 in the next six Tests to leapfrog Muttiah Muralitharan. Murali stands alone at the record for the fastest to 350 wickets which he achieved in 66 Tests. The next two on the list are Richard Hadlee and Dale Steyn, both of whom took 69 Tests to breach that mark.
Four of Ashwin’s next six Tests are in England. And if his last Test is a marker, he is likely to reach the 350-wicket landmark in the Australia series in December, either at Adelaide or more likely at Perth’s new stadium.
When Ashwin made his way into the Test team in 2011, he had traversed an untrodden path. From India’s first off-spinner Ghulam Ahmed to the greatest of them, Erapalli Prasanna, great firstclass performances had been rewarded with Test caps.
But Ashwin was the true product of India’s new age of cricket, and astonishingly, to the utter disbelief of purists, he emerged from the most unlikely breeding ground imaginable for an offspinner — the much vilified Indian Premier League.
CRITICS WRONG
If the purists thought this an aberration and expected him to fade away after a couple of matches, they were sadly mistaken.
In 2012, a year and nine days after his Test debut, Ashwin had picked up his 50th scalp bowling against England in his ninth Test. Only Charlie Turner of Australia (6 Tests), South Africa’s Vernon Philander (7) and Australia’s ‘Demon Bowler’ Fred Spofforth (8) had reached the landmark faster. No Indian was above Ashwin on that list. Exactly a year later when he bagged his 100th wicket against the West Indies, he had played 18 Tests. Only giants of spin bowling, George Lohmann of England and Clarrie Grimmett of Australia had done it faster — in 16 and 17 Tests respectively.
The next Indian name on the list was that of Erapalli Prasanna who had achieved the landmark in his 20th Test.
Fast forward three years to Kanpur, September 2016. Bowling in his 27th Test against New Zealand, when Ashwin picked up his 200th wicket, he only had the phenomenal Clarrie Grimmett above him at 36-Tests. Grimmett’s record had stood for 80-years and was destined to stand for a while longer only because two Tests had been washed out in the West Indies the previous series, preventing Ashwin from reaching the landmark in his 35th Test.
When Ashwin became the second-fastest to this milestone, he leapfrogged legends like Dennis Lillee, Waqar Younis, Dale Steyn and Ian Botham.
Just to show even more clearly how significant the achievement was, Malcolm Marshall, Alan Donald, Shane Warne and Muralitharan all took 42 Tests to reach the landmark.
Ashwin was no longer an aberration.
At the 300-wicket marker, standing tall was one of the greatest bowlers of all time, Dennis Keith Lillee who had taken 56 Tests to breach this citadel. Murali had done it in 58 and New Zealand’s Richard Hadlee in 61. In November 2017, playing his 54th Test against Sri Lanka, Ashwin became the fastest to reach 300 Test wickets.
And still the class of this man was questioned.
Australians called him a ‘home track bully’. They said Nathan Lyon was better. The English questioned his ability on non-subcontinental pitches and said Ashwin was not half as good as Graham Swann. Not so the Indian greats. Syed Kirmani says: “Ashwin is a fantastic spin bowler. The best India has had in many years.” Kirmani, universally acknowledged as the best keeper in the world against spin bowling, kept to the famous Spin Quartet for over a decade and to Prasanna and Chandra for almost two decades in domestic cricket for Karnataka. He should know.
When asked about the best spinners India has had since the Quartet, Bishan Singh Bedi replied: “Kumble and Ashwin.”
Bedi pointed out something that Ashwin himself acknowledged earlier last week: a spinner needs to beat the batsman twice, first in the air and then off the pitch. Ashwin was doing the latter in the first phase of his career. But with a change in action and practice he has now learnt to do both.