Ashwin: No.1 threat to No.1 team
Faf du Plessis says how South Africa handle Ashwin will determine their success in the Test series.
Since January this year, R Ashwin has been speed-dating all the three formats of cricket. In a crazy loop, he has hopped between Tests, ODIs and T20s. Ashwin’s 2015 so far reads: the New Year Test in Sydney and a tri-series ODI in Melbourne in January; February and March dedicated to the World Cup; IPL T20 in April and May; a Test and three ODIs in Bangladesh in June; three Test matches in Sri Lanka in August; and two T20 games against South Africa in October. That’s a breathless 5 Tests, 13 ODIs, 2 T20 and several IPL games.
It’s tough being a spinner these days. It’s tougher being a spinner in a nation of a highly opinionated army of cricket fans ideologically divided as Test tragics and T20 fanatics. The former would want you to be classy, loopy and wicket-taking. The latter demand you to be restrictive, thus flat and fast. By being an effective Test-spinner, you are continuing a golden legacy, pleasing the romantics and earning the respect of peers. By being a shorter-version dart-thrower, you get to sell soaps and shoes, secure your future, but break Bishan Singh Bedi’s heart.
Moreover, bulging bats, shrinking grounds, flat tracks, unfair rules and unimaginative rule-makers make the constant switch extremely difficult, especially for finger spinners. The leggies, with their powerful wrists and thus a heavier tweak, are better off, but only slightly. ‘Spin is dying’ has been the constant drone around cricket grounds. Strain your ears, and listen — ‘It’s been killed’ is the actual whisper.
We are expecting turn from day one: Faf du Plessis
India pick Harbhajan Singh for South Africa ODIs after R Ashwin suffers side strain
India vs South Africa: Teaser trailer of pace, spin face-off
India vs South Africa: You have to see strength of the team to pick the best combination, says MS Dhoni
India vs NZ T20: Yuvraj Singh’s return in focus as India take on Kiwis
India tried to win in England more than in World Cup: Ashwin
All through 2015, before he bruised his ribs in the first ODI at Kanpur and ended up missing the entire series, Ashwin seemed to have cracked the code. Enduring the changes — format, rules and conditions — he seemed to have evolved this unique universal bowling style of his own that didn’t need to change with the colour of his clothing. White, blue or canary yellow, he could retain his inner colour code as an off-spinner. The last such easily malleable bowler was Saeed Ajmal. Though, the elbow-bending, full-sleeved Pakistan offie’s task was relatively easier as he didn’t have to deal with those bludgeoning bats for two IPL months. Nor did Graeme Swann or Nathan Lyon venture into the sub-continent to play franchise cricket on lifeless tracks. The biggest of them all, Shane Warne and Muthiah Muralitharan, have successful Test, ODI, T20, IPL records, but they got introduced to the shortest — cruellest — version after they were masters of their art, and, more significantly, had ended (or were about to end) their Test careers.
Mind you, 2015 hasn’t put Ashwin in the Spin Hall of Fame. He has a long way to go. The year, rather the last 10 months, was about the ‘work in progress’ bowler having a plan in place. He looked more prepared while doing the complex Test-ODI-T20 juggle. That wasn’t the case in 2014. He had 10 wickets in 4 Tests, at 43.80. The shorter-form record was far better but questions were asked by game’s traditionalists. Is Ashwin limited? The man who was the fastest to get to the 100-Test wicket-mark was upsetting those who saw him as the next in line after Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh, as the new strike spinner. That faith has been restored, the early pace has picked up again. The format-flips haven’t messed up his routine. In the 5 Tests so far this year, he has 31 wickets. They have come at 23.29, a figure that’s better than his career average of 28.44. Statisticians might keep his 7/103 at Chennai against Australia in 2013 as the BBI (Best Bowling in an Innings) but this August’s 6/46 at Galle was easily the high-point of his career. In ODIs, he has 21 wickets from 13 games at 24.57, again a marked improvement from his overall bowling average of 31.27. He got his best figures of 4/25 this year at the World Cup where he had game-changing spells against South Africa and Pakistan.
Ashwin’s pursuit of that elusive all-round bowling template that he can trust across formats has also resulted in a self-discovery. He hails from Chennai, a city that can fill a stadium with its cricket intelligentsia and where editors get early morning calls to inform them that the crucial catch in a key club game last evening was taken at square-leg, and not at fine-leg as the newspaper reported. True to the place of his birth and cricketing bred, Ashwin is a thinking cricketer.
Cutting down on experiments
Though, at times, he is labelled as an over-analytical spinner who indulges in too many experiments. If Pakistan calls its cerebral all-rounder Mohammad Hafiz ‘the professor’, Ashwin could well be ‘the Dean’. When he speaks about his own bowling, it’s a discourse in physics and philosophy. In a recent espncricinfo.com interview, he was asked if his bowling lacked control and if needed to be patient. “I wouldn’t say control… I think knowledge. Knowledge about my own bowling,” he said, adding that if only patient cricketers had to be good, then yogis could have been good cricketers.
A constant ticking brain means exploring gimmicky innovations, attempting new actions and even dangerously pushing the envelope. He inserted a pause while in the final delivery stride to read the batsman’s pre-meditation. At times he would play with the batsman’s mind by that teasing ‘stirring the pot’ delayed release. He even started wearing a three-fourth sleeved shirt. His reason: Like others, he wanted to take advantage of the 15-degree bend rule relaxation. For a bowler with a natural high-arm and clean action, it was an unwanted over-reach.
Earlier this year, he has cut down on both the fancy and the chancy. He now concentrates on sticking to a line and constructing spells. By not trying to get wickets on every ball, he finishes with more scalps by the end of the day. Ashwin always had the variations, these days he knows when to use them. Talking to The Indian Express earlier in the year, he had said: “In the Tests, I had decided to develop a rhythm. I would decide that I had to bowl long spells and not just reduce my bowling to deliveries in a spell. I started to look at the big picture and the spell as a whole. In this particular over I was going to toss it up, this over probably work on changing pace…I changed my thinking from putting everything into one ball.”
The new Ashwin is making heads turn, some in awe and others in nervousness. Ahead of the Test match, listening to Faf du Plessis gives the impression that Ashwin could be the most-discussed Indian in the Proteas dressing room. “The way we play Ashwin will determine the success we have here,” du Plessis said. “He has been India’s standout spinner. We played him well (in the T20s). Now it is Tests. He will probably get more turn. He is our main threat.”
In the year’s last couple of months, Ashwin has a chance to make a big impression on the world’s top Test side. It’s his chance to make 2015 his leap year.
