Ravichandran Ashwin, from on-&-off spinner to top spinner
When Virat Kohli wanted to attack, he gave the ball to Ashwin. When he wanted to defend, again he brought on Ashwin. (Source: Reuters)
IT was a look you could best describe as the one a parent would give his teenaged son who’s just let an expletive slip out from the back-seat of the car. In a way, Stuart Binny had let his captain down. He had been brought on with a specific purpose, to contain Angelo Mathews and Kusal Perera, and to not let the duo take the game away. In addition of course to give his more established bowlers a break. But with two rank long-hops — both of which Mathews had bashed to the fence — he had let the Lankans slip away. Kohli was miffed. Even as Binny turned around, kicked the dust and walked back to his mark, the captain’s gaze didn’t shift. But only that he was now looking further beyond, at R Ashwin at deep mid-wicket.
Promptly, Kohli brought Ashwin on from the media end. Within a couple of overs, the off-spinner broke the threatening partnership by dismissing Kusal Perera. It wasn’t the first time that Kohli had looked to Ashwin when the team found themselves in a tight spot. It wasn’t the first time that Ashwin had reposed his skipper’s faith and responded with a wicket. If anything, it has almost been a tradition, in Sri Lanka—when in trouble, a captain turns to his lead spinner.
Kohli and Ashwin were just living up to it, playing their roles to perfection, with the tall off-spinner responding to his captain’s every SOS call with a successful rescue plan —like he did when Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal were building a partnership in the first innings at Galle, and when Dimuth Karunaratane was waging a lonely battle in the second innings at the P Sara Oval.
Eventually, Ashwin ended up with 21 victims in three matches — the most by an Indian against Sri Lanka — at an average of 18.09. He also ended with the man-of-the-series trophy. It was the fourth time he had done so in the six Test series he’s played in the subcontinent so far. The lengthy, forlorn spells of struggling for wickets overseas seemed a thing of the past. This was a confident Ashwin. And he was gorging on the subcontinent wickets, the way a vegetarian would on dal and chawal once back home after having spent a month abroad surviving on bread and cheese. Oh, and he also ruined the Kumar Sangakkara farewell party, dismissing the legendary left-hander every time he walked out to the middle to the sound of firecrackers and an entire nation holding its breath. To the extent that Sangakkara jovially claimed that he hardly could see what Ashwin was bowling at him.
Shoe was on the other foot
Speaking of traditions, during the Muttiah Muralitharan era, visiting teams would arrive in Sri Lanka and claim that they had figured out a plan to thwart Murali’s magic, only to eat humble pie as the highest wicket-taker in Test history run amok through their defences. But the shoe has been on the other foot this time around, with the Sri Lankans now finding excuses for their failures against an Indian off-spinner, and still falling prey to his wiles.
Ashwin has never lacked in self-belief. And it’s forever been acknowledged as arrogance. If it is indeed arrogance, then it seemed justified during each spell he wheeled out in Sri Lanka. For whenever he was thrown the ball — whether at the start of the innings or in the middle — he seemed to have a specific plan. He looked in control. He looked in command even if his captain was going through a phase of uncertainty and anxiety over the situation of the match. Even while Mathews and Perera looked set to turn the match on its head at the SSC, Ashwin never looked hurried. He took his own sweet time reaching his bowling mark — walking in generally from a position near the boundary like a man on a mission — before the start of every over. There was intent in his walk. And you just knew that he had a plan, and maybe so did the batsman.
There have been a lot of theories attributed to Ashwin’s renaissance as an off-spinner over the last six-odd months. But we could put it down to one thing, what the Tamils in India and Sri Lanka refer to as Nidaanam. It loosely means patience or focus. In Sri Lanka, especially, it’s also a term that is revered in a cricketing context — used copiously for the likes of Kumar Sangakkara. And over the last three weeks, Ashwin has showcased this virtue in abundance, never losing his composure even when wickets weren’t coming his way. There were times when he ran through the Lankans, like on the first day at Galle and on the final day at P Sara. But it was the control he provided each time his captain called upon him, when his role was more about keeping the batsmen in check, that he really showed his maturity by managing to tone down his ambitions and stick to his task. He also seemed keener on taking his time to entrap his victims, rather than getting restless trying get rid of them.
And as he sat next to his victorious captain after the series had been clinched, he was frank in the assessment of the change of approach towards his game.
‘Increased focus’
“The last 10 or 12 months I have been more focussed on the Test match game. I came to terms with the fact that Test cricket is no child’s play. I wanted to be serious in every aspect of the game and be as focussed as possible,” said Ashwin.
He also gave incessant credit to the support he had on offer from his bowling colleagues, starting from his spin colleague Amit Mishra to the fast bowlers led by Ishant Sharma. But as the Indian team returned home on Wednesday, Ashwin had also emerged as the chieftain of the bowling attack, and Kohli’s go-to man.
“If something was happening I would give the ball to Anil. If nothing was happening I would give the ball to Anil. If you needed to attack you give him the ball. If you needed to defend you give him the ball.” This is what Sachin Tendulkar had said about captaining Anil Kumble when India’s highest wicket-taker in Tests called it a day. That has pretty much been the case with Kohli and Ashwin over the last three weeks, as Indian cricket commenced a new era.
