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!