How good is Ravichandran Ashwin? To some the question is rhetorical, to others interrogative. After another spectacular performance against New Zealand, he is No1 in the ICC Test bowling rankings, and will surely make life very unpleasant for England’s batsmen this winter. Yet this is not a straightforward case of a spinner achieving greatness. The enormous disparity between his record at home and abroad means that Ashwin is often disparaged by one little phrase: rough-track bully.
His overall record is astonishing. He has taken 220 wickets in only 39 Tests, and has won four consecutive man of the series awards – a feat that only Malcolm Marshall and Imran Khan had achieved. He takes wickets in industrial quantities and his record is that of a mini-Murali. In the past 50 years, only Muttiah Muralitharan has taken five-fers and ten-fers with such frequency; and of those spinners with 100 Test wickets in the same period, only Murali has a lower average than Ashwin’s 24.29.
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