Ashwin’s spin class settles India nerves after first-Test fright
IT DID not take Ravichandran Ashwin long to rediscover his poise. And when Ashwin is bowling with poise, it is easy to see why India are top of the Test rankings.
Ashwin, top of the rankings himself, had begun to worm his way inside English minds on the second evening of this Test, removing Ben Duckett and Joe Root in quick succession, then reflected chirpily on his success.
The Ashwin show continued after lunch on day three, winning lbw shouts against three of the seven left-handers in this England line-up — Ben Stokes, Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson.
No matter that the technology later showed the Broad decision was missing leg. India’s attack leader had his 22nd five-for in Test cricket and, astonishingly, his 13th in 17 games since June 2015.
Right now, Ashwin and his captain Virat Kohli are ruling the game in this part of the world.
Ashwin’s impact on this match was important not only for his team, but for his own confidence. During the first Test there were whispers that maybe England just weren’t the opponents for him.
He left Gujarat with figures of three for 230, among the worst of his career. They took his overall record against England to a sobering 20 wickets at 53 apiece. These were the numbers of a part-timer, not the best bowler in the world.
The numbers, though, did not tell the whole story. Ashwin was an immature bowler when England visited in 2012-13, infuriating India coach Duncan Fletcher with his refusal to settle on a stock ball as Alastair Cook’s side won the series 2-1 and Rajkot was a bad place for a slow bowler if your captain lost the toss, as Kohli did.
England played him well but the suspicion persisted that it would be only a matter of time before a transformed Ashwin came across a surface to his liking and got among his opponents, like a lorry scattering tuk-tuks on the byways of Visakhapatnam.
Sure enough, no England harried Ashwin during their first innings of 255. Stokes and Jonny Bairstow played him with something approaching calm during their sixth-wicket stand of 110. But that was as good as it got.
Ashwin’s success stems from his ability to stay one step ahead of the batsman. It was a priceless knack noted before this game by Stokes and confirmed by the dismissal of Root, who miscued a lofted drive to mid-off, undone by the drift Ashwin routinely gets away from the right-hander. But when a local journalist asked him an innocuous question about the pitch, he responded tetchily. India have thin skins about the notion that their No 1 ranking has relied on turning tracks at home. And it is an especially sensitive subject for Ashwin.
He needn’t worry. All the best bowlers down the years have thrived at home. No one would expect anything less and by bowling India to a 200-run lead, he had returned their cricket to its axis after the experience of Rajkot. Ashwin is once more spinning like he should be.