Brisbane: The off-spinners’ club lost it brightest star when R Ashwin announced his retirement in Brisbane on Wednesday. He wasn’t picked for the Gabba Test and perhaps sitting on the bench firmed up his mind.
In a quick emotional announcement, Ashwin called time on a career that defied odds in many ways. He finished with 537 wickets in a 106-Test career that saw India scale the storied heights of the game.
Before Ashwin came on the scene, India’s most successful off-spinner was Harbhajan Singh and the latter was at the Gabba as a commentator to see a great call time on his international career.
The 44-year-old had a quick chat with Hindustan Times to talk about what in his opinion made Ashwin special.
Excerpts
How would you sum up Ashwin’s career?
He is a thinking cricketer, and of course, over the years he has evolved. His graph, if you see, from where he started to today… he has been achieving all those milestones and winning games for India in every part of the world. It only goes to show that he’s got the skill and he was always mentally ready for the challenges all the time. He kept adding weapons to his arsenal and the Ashwin today is almost unrecognisable from the bowler he was when he made his debut. Getting in the carrom ball or using the side spin or getting it to turn less — he could do it all. He was never predictable. Bringing in the changes needed to make himself relevant and effective at the same time. It isn’t easy to try new things but he was always willing to try.
He even tried leg spin…
Haha. Yes, he did but it was good that he returned to off-spin. But he was always up to something. The batters didn’t know what was coming or what he would cook up. Sometimes the action would change, sometimes the run-up. With Ashwin, they never knew.
One criticism was that he had his share of helpful wickets in India…
Yes, the wickets were helpful but you still needed to land the ball in the right spot. And that shouldn’t take anything away from his achievements. At the same time, it is worth noting that other bowlers were bowling on the same wickets, but how many have taken more than 500 wickets? So, if the others have 300 and he has 500, he was clearly doing something better than the others. So, credit where it is due regardless of the pitches.
What will the Indian team miss most about him?
I think a good allrounder down the order. His bowling alone would have made him irreplaceable but he could bat as well. Most of all, he was a thinking cricketer who could outthink the batters. That is an invaluable gift.
Where do you place him among India’s great off-spinners?
Well, it is always unfair to compare across eras. Each one was great in his time and had a special quality. If you look at it, just it terms of wickets, then Ashwin should be right on top. But from Prasanna to me, we have all tried to take Indian cricket forward in our own way, and it must be said that Ashwin has strengthened that tradition even more.
Every great bowler has something that makes them stand out from the crowd. What was it for Ashwin?
The carrom ball. When the doosra had come into the game, it was something new. But he got the carrom ball and no one had seen anything like this. And that is a very difficult ball to bowl. Doing it with the tennis ball is one thing and to do it with the leather ball is a different thing altogether. It is very difficult. You need a lot of strength in your fingers. I tried it a lot but it was only at a much later stage did I understand how it has to be bowled. So, it wasn’t just thinking up new stuff that made him special, it was that he gained expertise in it too.
During the 2019 IPL, Ashwin ran out Jos Buttler at the non-striker’s end for backing up too far. Now this is something that bowlers around the world try to do…
His conviction was always that the crease belongs to the batter and the bowler. So, whatever right the batters had, the bowlers did too and the same rules apply to both. So, if you want to defeat him in that argument, that is impossible. No cricketer becomes great without conviction and this was Ashwin showing us what he was truly about. A man unafraid to say it as he saw it.
