Ashwin Walks The Talk With His Cathartic Century

Abhijato returns with a look at Ravi Ashwin’s performance on day 3 at Chennai. England are predictably in the mire. And they’ve been put there largely thanks to a man who bats almost as well as he bowls sometimes …

The greatest advantage Ravichandran Ashwin the batsman had on a decaying Chennai pitch was that he did not have to face himself as a bowler from the other end.

When he walked out as the Indian number eight in the second innings, his team’s total stood at 106. The inimitable skipper Kohli was holding up one end with the grit which has come to define this team. The other batsmen had been dismissed to deliveries which ranged from the unplayable to the merely mischievous.

Foakes spent most of the day behind the stumps collecting one magnificent take after another, a job he’s done for many years to less raucous reception from the media in county cricket. His need to prove his athleticism further illustrated the lack of control batsmen had on this pitch over both their shots as well as their fates. It resembled a Taunton track which had been left untouched for a month and a half.

Puffs of dust exploded from the surface as soon as the morning began. Pujara was dismissed, then Rohit, then Pant, then Rahane – even a day earlier, most of the shots they played would be met with the middle of their bats. Now, playing any shot at all had become a virtual death sentence.

And yet, Ashwin played with the freedom of a man who knew the context behind the scorecard more intimately than he knew the pitch itself. He is a local boy, who grew up playing his cricket around these parts. For the better half of a decade, he also bowled for his IPL franchise Chennai Super Kings in this city during their home games. In every sense of the phrase, Chepauk is his ‘own ground’.

India also led by 301 runs when he walked out to the middle. This does not take away from the quality of his innings as much as it speaks about the opposition bowlers he faced. Moeen Ali and Jack Leach bowled like students who had done their homework, but they fluffed their lines (and lengths) every now and then – they hadn’t learnt the prose by heart. It showed.

Ashwin was generously helped out by the half-trackers and the half-volleys which were tossed up for him to sweep his way to a positive start. He took no half-measures himself. The sweep shot – just like in Root’s and Rohit’s masterclasses in this series – was the most prominent one he played. He managed to hold onto a rhythm just when his side needed it to establish their dominance. And by the time the English spinners had regained their sway over the conditions, it no longer mattered for a batsman of Ashwin’s calibre.

Even as his skipper played cautiously and with inhuman control on a pitch where every ball moved like an Indian Hyundai does in the middle of a confusing four-way street, Ashwin did what he does best. He played a balancing act which saw him attempt outrageous shots – with slaps to the offside which would look more at home with a racquet in hand at the Australian Open – and combining it effectively with his natural timing even while defending.

The skipper departed soon, but there was no stopping Ashwin.

Ishant Sharma and Mohammad Siraj represent a more optimistic version of India’s tail. Previously, it was desperately hopeless. But the incumbent lower order has now improved itself to be hopelessly desperate instead.

The English spinners let Ashwin score a bulk of the 76 runs which were made in their innings’ last two partnerships. Joe Root – renowned for his pessimistic brand of field compositions – decided to place his faith in the spinners for once. He set an attacking field with close catchers wandering around the pitch during this time. Unluckily for his side, wandering around the pitch was what they were relegated to doing for most of it as well.

It was another damning indictment of the English bowling attack that it could not extract the tailenders, or even Ashwin, any sooner than they eventually did. They took out five batsmen in a single phase of the game, as it often happens in the Indian subcontinent, where wickets fall in clumps even while you’re down in the dumps. Going by the way the Indian spinners have already become unplayable during the fourth innings on this Chepauk surface, it’s safe to say England needed to get all ten much sooner if they were to stand a hypothetical chance of winning this match.

The day – and the match – comprehensively belonged to Ravichandran Ashwin. There have never been questions about his merit as a spinner. His overarching personality and an unfortunate spate of injuries have turned his obvious claim to the spot of being the world’s best spinner into a debate. But his recent ventures speak of a clear desire to reclaim the title as soon as the time comes.

In the past few years, his batting average had fallen off a cliff. There was a lack of clarity about where he wanted his feet to be and how much of a backlift he wanted to give to his willow. It spoke in his batting numbers as well – since averaging 43.71 in 2016, he’s averaged 17.07, 20.40, 12.00 and 6.60 in the years which came next.

But the rearguard he pulled off in Sydney with a strained back has rebalanced his intrinsic desire to be the world’s best all-rounder. The bravado’s returned along with the confidence. In a press conference the day before he hit his century, he spoke about how a batsman should approach batting on a dustbowl like this – by giving themselves time to settle in, and then going for their shots, just like they would on a greentop. He’s now walked the talk as well.

Ashwin is one of the most naturally gifted timers of the ball in Indian cricket, who often made batting look easier than it was on difficult surfaces during his initial years as an international. Perhaps, these intermittent years of being lost in the wilderness were an essential part of his growth as a cricketer. But he’s given himself the time he needed to settle into his career. 392 wickets at 25.27 isn’t the worst haul he could have picked up while on this journey.

With the bat in hand, Ashwin is reopening the chapter of his career which deals with his ambitions of becoming the world’s best all-rounder. This Test century must be the most cathartic out of the five he’s scored at this level. It came at his home ground, after all.

But rather than perceiving it as a story which has come full circle, Ashwin will look at this as the beginning of a new story – one where he writes his own fate and proves the sceptics wrong with the runs he scores and the wickets he takes. He’s so much more than just one of the world’s best Test cricketers. He’s the cleverest of them all too.

Abhijato Sensarma