Is Ravichandran Ashwin already among India's all time greatest Test cricketers?
A young Indian team registered a thumping win in the first test in the West Indies, and to no one’s surprise, it was another win orchestrated by their leading test match spinner, Ravichandran Ashwin.
During the match, the statistics showed a piece on the ratio of matches to five wicket hauls for bowlers and checked who stands where. It was heartening, as well as surprising to see how high Ashwin sits in this esteemed list!
This led me to check where he sits when compared to other Indian bowlers who have represented the country at the test level with distinction after having played a substantial amount of matches. Hence, I took out a list of India’s all-time leading test wicket takers and listed the top 10.
Ashwin, as of now, sits at no. 10 in this list, and the other 9, in descending order by wickets taken are:
Anil Kumble, Kapil Dev, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, B.S. Bedi, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Javagal Srinath, Ishant Sharma and Erapalli Prasanna.
I divided the no. of test innings they bowled in by the no. of 5 wicket hauls, and compared the results to what Ashwin has managed to achieve so far in his test career, that’s just 33 tests young. The results have been rounded off to one decimal place:
Here are the stats for the most five wicket hauls for Indian bowlers:
Bowler | Bowling Innings | Five-fors | Innings per five-for |
Anil Kumble | 236 | 35 | 6.7 |
Kapil Dev | 227 | 23 | 9.9 |
Harbhajan Singh | 190 | 25 | 7.6 |
Zaheer Khan | 165 | 11 | 15 |
B.S. Bedi | 118 | 14 | 8.4 |
Bhagwat Chandrasekhar | 97 | 16 | 6.1 |
Javagal Srinath | 121 | 10 | 12.1 |
Ishant Sharma | 121 | 7 | 17.3 |
Erapalli Prasanna | 86 | 10 | 8.6 |
Ravichandran Ashwin | 61 | 17 | 3.6 |
In just 61 bowling innings, Ashwin has already had more five-fors than Zaheer Khan, Bedi, Chandrasekhar, Srinath, Ishant and Prasanna.
Among off spinners, when compared to his contemporary, Harbhajan, he has just 8 less five-fors in 129 lesser innings.
To compare him with India’s present coach and the man who is arguably India’s greatest ever spinner and match winner, Anil Kumble, he’s taken almost half the number of five-fors but in almost one-fourth the number of innings.
Another interesting thing to look at, and one that should be a matter of great worry for batsmen around the world, is that Ashwin is just 30, and spinners, usually, “come into their own” and mature as bowlers after 30, as they’re more at ease with their art and have by then acquired complete mastery over it.
If Ashwin’s stats are like the ones mentioned above at the age of 30, one can only wonder what he’ll achieve if he manages to maintain form and fitness to play test match cricket for another 6-8 years!
Ashwin the batsman
That Ravichandran Ashwin adds huge value to the team as a batsman is an understatement. Most commentators and cricket experts have for long held the view that going by his technique and temperament, he can easily bat for India at no. 6 in tests.
If there’s any proof needed to confirm his prowess as a test batsman, it can be judged by the fact that presently, he’s the no. 1 ranked test all-rounder as per ICC’s ratings.
Now, to compare him with other Indian test all-rounders, here’s a list of cricketers who’ve played for India in the past and have performed decently over a substantial period of time to be termed “all-rounders”.
Ashwin when compared to the best Indian all-rounders:
All-rounder | Test Runs | Innings | Batting Average |
Kapil Dev | 5248 | 184 | 31.05 |
Vinoo Mankad | 2109 | 72 | 31.47 |
Ravi Shastri | 3830 | 121 | 35.79 |
Irfan Pathan | 1105 | 40 | 31.57 |
Manoj Prabhakar | 1600 | 58 | 32.65 |
Ravichandran Ashwin | 1317 | 49 | 33.76 |
As we can see, among Indian test cricketers who can be termed all-rounders and who’ve played at least 25 tests, Ashwin’s batting average is second only to Ravi Shastri’s, whereas from the bowling stats we saw above, he’s streets ahead of all others when it comes to wicket taking strike rate!
Combining the two, isn’t it “statistically” correct to say that he’s perhaps the best test all-rounder India has ever produced?
Man of the series awards
A statistic that often gets overlooked when talking about great test performances and their impact and contribution towards the team’s success, is the no. of man of the series awards won by a player.
In the all-time list of most man of the series awards (which became a regular feature since the 1980s), most readers might be surprised to know that Ashwin sits at no. 11 with 5 such awards already, and his rate of winning these awards, is the BEST of all cricketers ever to have won 3 or more man of the series awards.
He’s won 5 in just 13 series’ he’s played thus far, which is a rate of one every 2.6 series; the next best being Imran Khan and Malcolm Marshall with 8 awards in 28 and 6 in 21 series respectively, which comes out to be 3.5 series per award, as can be seen in the table below:
Player | Series | Man of the series awards | Series per award |
Imran Khan | 28 | 8 | 3.5 |
Malcolm Marshall | 21 | 6 | 3.5 |
Sachin Tendulkar | 74 | 5 | 14.8 |
Virender Sehwag | 39 | 5 | 7.8 |
Ravichandran Ashwin | 13 | 5 | 2.6 |
Among Indian cricketers, he’s tied at 5 with Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar, but they took 39 and 74 series respectively to get there, which Ashwin has done in just 13!
Combining all these stats shown above, I come to the question: “Has Ravichandran Ashwin already done enough to be counted as one of India’s all-time greatest test cricketers?”
The stats certainly say so!