The road ahead for R. Ashwin and the search for an alternative

Ravichandran Ashwin – Can he perform abroad?

A poor outing in Johannesburg followed by an ugly coincidence has brought India’s premier off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin back to square one. It was on Boxing Day that Ashwin was thrust into a strange quandary by a couple of intricately intertwined events – on the same day that the BCCI chose him for the prestigious Polly Umrigar Award for being the best international cricketer of the year from India, he was inexplicably dropped from the Indian squad that went into the 2^nd Test match against South Africa at Durban.

Ashwin’s exclusion from an otherwise hail and hearty Indian playing XI brings back unsavory memories of his travails against England, at home, exactly a year ago. The spell of renaissance that this former Tamil Nadu opener had enjoyed starting with Australia’s visit to India in March, earlier this year, seems to have been too short-lived and his place in the team has yet again come under dark clouds of uncertainty following a lackluster show in the three ODIs and the first Test match against South Africa.

2013 has been a mixed bag for this much hyped and apparently capable successor of Harbhajan Singh – while his panache has seen India through a number of challenging situations at home and also in the Champions Trophy, a major transformation in his career still seems to be incomplete, when his trailblazing run to 100 Test wickets is put in perspective with the paltry bag of 9 Test wickets that he has managed to accrue in 4 overseas Test matches so far.

This has become especially indigestible to an Indian team which has just started showing signs of recuperation, after a prolonged hiatus in producing positive results in the last two years. While Ashwin’s run at home has been stellar, to say the least, his performance overseas continues to lurch in the darkest corners of his career, putting the Indian team management into a serious dilemma – is it safe to persist with a fiery Ashwin at home and look for his suitable replacements when India steps out of the subcontinent? Or does there need to be an alternative to Ashwin, other than Jadeja and Pragyan Ojha, who can more appropriately fill the shoes of Anil Kumble and Harbhajan when India goes abroad?

The selection of the Indian team for the ongoing second Test against South Africa must have been based on such a proposition – and the think-tank, finding none good enough to replace Ashwin midway through a seriously challenging tour, chose to go ahead with Ravindra Jadeja – a step that appears eccentric, considering the risk that India were taking by dropping a specialist spinner to incorporate an all-rounder who can at best be termed a nondescript in overseas conditions.

This definitely throws enough light on the lines of thinking of the Indian team management – they are definitely not looking to keep Ashwin as the sole representative of India’s spin repository for the near future, and they are definitely looking for a more competitive candidate and then weigh all the options before the all important World Cup kicks off in 2015.

Can he bounce back?

Now, here comes the important question – if the search for a viable alternative to Ashwin is indeed on, then why is it so, and who can personify the answer in the best possible manner?

1. A cursory glance at India’s jam-packed cricket calendar for the next 18 months straightaway puts a heavy premium on the time available to either look for viable alternatives to Ashwin or to give him a considerable stretch of free run in overseas conditions in order to infer whether or not he is capable to hold India’s spin fort, irrespective of venues, in the coming days (India is scheduled to visit New Zealand in January and England in June 2014). Thus, Jadeja’s performance in the ongoing Durban Test shall be a key determinant of the manner in which Ashwin is handled from now on. Even if Jadeja does manage to create some impression on the selectors’ minds, there shall be absolutely no guarantee, whatsoever, of his longevity in trying and testing circumstances in the future – something that had made Kumble and Harbhajan legends in the field of spin bowling, both at home and overseas.
2. Pragyan Ojha, who has played second fiddle to Ashwin even in spin friendly sub continental conditions, does not remotely resemble India’s candidate for making the ball talk in places where it is hard to. Amit Mishra, Piyush Chawla and the doting Harbhajan Singh are no longer in the pink of their health to entertain serious thoughts of impressive comebacks, thereby restricting India with limited or no options with respect to the presence of an Ashwin alternative in the current circuit. This obviously has subtle indications to the idea that the selectors may have to do the unwanted muck raking job of looking into the wilderness of the Ranji Trophy for suitable spin prodigies who can do the job, at least till the 2015 World Cup. IPL cannot be considered as a talent pool here, considering the ignominy that some IPL recruits have earned for the Indian team in the recent years.

So, as it stands now, we are in a labyrinthine problem with three equally uncertain exits –

(a)    Exit 1: Ashwin might just turn-around to prove his detractors wrong. This looks unlikely, given the modicum of time that he is going to get in the upcoming tours to find an altogether new rhythm on foreign soil, which has eluded him so far.

(b)   Exit 2: A prodigy is suddenly born in India’s domestic squalor and takes on the mantle of Bhajji/Kumble for the coming tours and successfully replaces Ashwin for some time. Again, this looks uncertain considering the fact that spinners born on some of the rank turners dished out in the Ranji Trophy have rarely metamorphosed into wicket taking machines in completely alien conditions abroad, and that too when there is hardly enough time left for grooming.

(c)    Exit 3: An Amit Mishra or Piyush Chawla or Harbhajan Singh, all of whom have been on the wane for quite some time now, makes a miraculous comeback to stun the entire nation. This looks the unlikeliest of all the three exits and hence need not be put under any discussion for the time being.

A plethora of problems staring in the face of Team India – and it all surprisingly stems from the man who has been the fastest to reach 100 Test wickets in the history of the game. Strange and surprising – and that’s what cricket is all about – constantly solving riddles to move into the future. Hopefully, India can do that well here!