R Ashwin’s Success Is All The Sweeter For The Ever-Learning Struggle

R Ashwin capped off the England series with his 36th five-for in Test cricket. Aadya Sharma looks back at the spell and details how despite the challenges this series threw at him on and off the field, Ashwin, in the home-stretch of his career, is still as wily as ever.

You’d think Ravichandran Ashwin can pick up home Test wickets in his sleep. Why not, for over 70 per cent of his career wickets have come on Indian pitches? No other bowler in history has taken as many in India.

And yet, there he was in Ranchi last month, struggling through 20 wicketless overs, with a 20-year-old opposition rookie outperforming him.

A week earlier, R Ashwin picked up his 500th Test wicket in Rajkot, but rushed home that night due to a family emergency. He picked up a total of two wickets across both innings.

To still end as the leading wicket-taker in a 4-1 series win against the English might seem like usual Ashwin stuff, but it’s more than that: at 37, he’s obsessively dedicated to his craft.

On what turned out to be the final morning of the series, the Ashwin of old was on full display: turn, dip and drift, all wonderfully aligning for his 36th five-wicket haul.

Ben Duckett got the first evidence of that dip (and extra bounce from the hard new ball). Across five deliveries, he swept, got an inside edge, and was finally bowled, unable to stay in his crease and beaten in the air, no trust on his defence.

Zak Crawley got the other treatment – turn from outside off with more of the same delicious dip, making him play at it and lose his shape and balance. Leg slip did the rest.

And then came the Ollie Pope dismissal.

In the first innings, Pope’s exaggerated out-of-crease charge and the resultant stumping became an internet meme. Out-thought by Kuldeep Yadav the first time, he would have vowed to make better use of his crease.

The third ball he faces off Ashwin is an absolute ripper: it turns sharply from outside off and whizzes past Pope’s bat, cutting in such that it jumps past his leg stump. For all of Dhruv Jurel’s talent, he couldn’t match the turn and pace of that one. Pope turned back to see the ball go for four byes and sheepishly smiled.

The next ball Pope faced tells you everything about both the batter and bowler’s mindset. Pope premeditated the shot, born out of his will to stay in his crease and trust his best weapon: the sweep. But that was no ball to play the sweep. Perhaps, Pope’s Hyderabad mindset, which fetched him 196 wondrous runs back then, brought his downfall. Over a month ago, he said the sweep and reverse can be safer than the defence. It surely can’t always be.

Ashwin, shrewd as always, kept back the conventional off-spinner and instead slipped in the arm ball, maybe even an undercutter, rolling his fingers underneath the ball. Aware that Pope would be unsure of driving him, with the fear of letting one through the gates, he had stationed a short leg and leg slip to plug his glancing options. He held back his length a tad and bowled one with the seam pointed at short third-man. Pope went through with the shot, but the new ball bounced more and took the top edge, nestling into the hands of the running square-leg fielder.

“Cricket is a game played between your ears”, Ashwin said after the game.

Ben Stokes, Ashwin’s perennial bunny, did not have much clue either. Hoping to play for the turn, he wasn’t sufficiently prepared for another arm ball that snaked into him and took his stumps away. It was the first ball he faced off Ashwin, it could be the last ball he ever faces off Ashwin. Thirteen times, the dismissal record says it all.

It wasn’t all rosy throughout: Jonny Bairstow smashed him for three sixes in six balls during a brief counter-attack. For a while, it seemed like Ashwin could be read, but Kuldeep Yadav took care of him.

A lunch break and a missed Ben Foakes sweep later, Ashwin was celebrating his 36th five-wicket haul, holding the ball aloft as wife Prithi and kids stood up and applauded along with the rest of the crowd.

It’s been a series of milestones for Ashwin and family, but it’s also been a challenging phase. Ahead of his landmark 100th Test, Prithi Ashwin revealed details of the evening Ashwin had to rush back from Rajkot to Chennai to be with his ill mother, admitted to the Intensive Care Unit.

“During Rajkot, the kids had just got back from school when five minutes later, he got to 500. And soon, all of us were on the phone answering all the congratulatory messages,” Prithi wrote.

“It was then that I heard a sudden scream from aunty as she collapsed, and in no time we were at the hospital. At that point, we had decided not to tell Ashwin because there wasn’t good flight connectivity between Chennai and Rajkot.

“So I dialled Cheteshwar Pujara and his family were of great help. And once we found a way out, I called up Ashwin because after the scans, the doctor suggested it was better to have her son around. Over the phone, he sounded so broken and hung up. It took another 20-25 minutes to process what I told him and for him to call back.”

Ashwin reached the hospital late and spent the night there, and flew back only when he was told her health had stabilised. “Given his personality, he would never leave a game like that,” Prithi wrote. “And he would have an extreme amount of guilt if he didn’t win the game for his team.”

Rahul Dravid later called it his standout moment of the series. “Ashwin coming back to the team after 24 hours after what he went through…” Dravid said. “[Coming back] for the team and wanting to contribute for the team signifies what the team is about.”

The incident softens the image of Ashwin, the battle-ready home-terrain hunter, ready to eat up the opposition for stepping foot in his territory. He’d reprimand you for leaving the crease early and tear into you if you throw words at him on the pitch. But this series also showed the more vulnerable side of Ashwin, on the field and otherwise. He had some hard days on the field and some long days off it, but still remained true to his trade.

When he playfully fought with Kuldeep Yadav to hand him the match ball, it probably had a slight foreshadowing. Ashwin can’t keep playing forever – in his shadow, Kuldeep has missed many more Tests than he’s played. The next series isn’t for several months, at least until Ashwin is 38.

“Lately, we are talking about life after retirement every now and then,” Prithi revealed. “I think the post-retirement topic becomes very important because whether you like it or not, it will give a certain purpose to life after cricket.”

For a man who has spent several overseas Tests on the bench, contemplated leg-spin to save his career in 2017, and pondered retirement last year after debilitating knee trouble, Ashwin has seen worse days. A less-than-perfect series doesn’t make him a lesser player: but it gives a slight realisation that the ultimate farewell might not be far away. Who knows, he might have even silently played his last Test.

Either way, you can’t help marvelling at Ashwin, the ever-learning genius. Slightly less intimidating, slightly softened by age. But still, the Ashwin.