Ravichandran Ashwin 50*: Benchmarking the baffling numbers so far

Cricket enthusiasts are very similar to all other sport lovers in one aspect. We all love to compare players from different eras or those with similar profiles and achievements. It’s human nature to believe that a player is the ultimate benchmark and those gone by or those to follow ought to be weighed on the other pan of the beam balance which is the outcome of a whimsical conundrum of an over enthusiastic fan.

I am a self confessed admirer of one of Indian cricket’s modern greats, Ravi Ashwin, and hold him very highly as a cricketing brain. As he is playing his 50th test in Galle, another number adds up in his mind boggling statistics column. I believe he has been the biggest contributor to India’s test victories in the past couple of years and the numbers prevent many from denying the same.

His overall contribution with bat and ball has been unseen in Indian cricket for a while and is admirable. But any statistic can only be claimed to be superlative if it were to be benchmarked with a similar one. And this desire to put into context Ashwin’s statistics in his first 49 tests, led me to check on how the greatest contributor with bat and ball of my generation – Jacques Kallis, fared in his first 49 test matches.

Outrageous and irrational to compare? Definitely. I personally am not a huge fan of comparing cricketers from different generations and I don’t think who hasn’t played the game at the highest level should try to on a qualitative level. However, my intention was to find out where Ashwin stands viz a viz where Kallis was at this point of his career to give some perspective to his phenomenal statistics till date.

Jacques Kallis

Firstly, Kallis played 27 matches at home and 22 away as compared to Ashwin’s rather skewed home and away ratio of 32 to 17. Unlike other sports, cricket played at home and on away soil requires a varying degree of skill and application. So, from a statistician’s perspective, Kallis will have to be given a higher weighted average on this aspect for both bowling and batting.

I'll start with bowling first. Ashwin has 275 test scalps to his name in 49 tests as compared to 92 for Kallis at the same stage. However, Ashwin has played more matches at home and bowls a lion’s share of the overs too whereas Kallis was a change-up bowler in a fire breathing bowling line up.

The number of wickets per match is such a mis match that very little can be discussed. However, Kallis proves to be an equally potent wicket-taker as much as in away matches as in the home conditions. He had picked up 47 of his 92 wickets at home and 45 away. Compare that to 208 wickets at home for Ashwin and 67 away, the higher weighted average we initially gave Kallis, starts playing a role.

A look at the bowling averages makes things even interesting. While Ashwin has a slightly better bargain in picking up his wickets at 25.22 as compared to 27.02 for Kallis, the home and away average variations pull things in Kallis’ favour. While Ashwin picks up wickets at 22.64 a piece at home, it goes up to 33.23 in away conditions. Kallis, on the other hand, has an envious record of having a better bowling average of 26.46 away and almost an identical 27.55 at home. So strangely enough, if I could borrow a phrase from accounting, although the top line comparison for bowling is a no brainer, if one were to dig deep and understand the performance of both entities after several crests and troughs of the market, the bottom line is a closer contest depending on the kind of returns one was expecting.

When it comes to batting, I would stick my head out and give a higher weighted average to Ashwin as he has predominantly batted at 6, 7 or lower along with the tail whereas Kallis batted at 3 in 43 of his first 49 matches as also till he retired. With that in mind, let’s assess the numbers for both of them. Ashwin has 1903 test runs till date and Kallis had amassed 2884 runs at this juncture. Ashwin averages 32.25 with the bat which is more or less similar both home and away whereas Kallis averaged 41.2 without much deviation at home and away games. Considering the fact that the kind of partners both had while batting has a lot of difference in skill and temperament, according to me, the overall difference in runs or averages again means little.

In short, if I were to measure Ashwin’s statistics from the yardstick of Kallis’ statistics after 49 test matches, an interesting pattern comes out. People with more knowledge about the game and even statistics for that matter, may be able to draw out a lot more than I have or can. However, what excites me is the fact that Ashwin is just playing his 50th game and I am sure he will serve Indian cricket with 50 more at least provided form and heath stay kind to him and his numbers thus far play out pretty well on the epitome of measuring scale of multi talented cricketers like Jacques Kallis.

Kallis went on to scale heights that are probably insurmountable by anyone else in future and considering the difference in skill sets of the key skills of bowling and batting between the two, Ashwin will go on to pick up far more wickets than Kallis and score far less runs than him too. But again, if at the end of his career, Ashwin can be as effective a match winner as Kallis was both at home and away as a match winner and a role model, Indian cricket will be blessed and Cricket in general will have the good fortune of seamlessly getting used to one modern day great after the other bid adieu in a short span of time.