Stats: Ravichandran Ashwin equals Indian record for most Man of the Series awards

Ashwin – A class apart

Ravichandran Ashwin equalled the Indian record for most Man of the Series awards in Tests, after picking up his fifth award after the Delhi Test, which India won by 337 runs to seal a 3-0 win over No.1 ranked South Africa.

Ashwin joined Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar, who also have five Man of the Series awards, as the Indians with the most such awards. What makes his achievement all the more impressive is the fact that he has picked up the awards in just 12 series, while it took Sehwag 39 series and Sachin 74 series to get to their milestones.

Not only does he have more Man of the Series awards (5) than Man of the Match awards in Tests, but he has picked up the Man of the Series award five times in India’s last 6 Test series wins, which only highlight his importance to the national side.

Here is a list of the players with the most Man of the Series awards for India in Tests.

Player	Matches	Series	Awards
Ravichandran Ashwin	32	12	5
Virender Sehwag	104	39	5
Sachin Tendulkar	200	74	5
Kapil Dev	131	38	4
Harbhajan Singh	103	47	4
Anil Kumble	132	51	4
Rahul Dravid	164	60	4
Mohammad Azharuddin	99	37	3
Zaheer Khan	92	41	3
Sourav Ganguly	113	45	3

The off-spinner picked up 31 wickets in the four-match series – his career-best in Tests – beating the 29 wickets he had taken against Australia in Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2012/13. What makes this record all the more impressive was that he only bowled seven innings in this series, whereas he bowled in 8 innings against Australia.

In the list of all-time most Man of the Series Awards, Ashwin is currently in 11th place. Although 10 players have won the award more times than the 29-year-old, he only needs six more to go top of the list.

Muttiah Muralitharan, the all-time leading wicket-taker in Tests, leads the pack with 11 awards and is also the only player to have won more than 10 such awards. In second place is South African all-rounder Jacques Kallis with nine, while three players have picked up 8 each.

Here is a list of the players with the most Man of the Series awards in Tests.

Player	Matches	Series	Awards
Muttiah Muralitharan	133	61	11
Jacques Kallis	166	61	9
Imran Khan	88	28	8
Sir Richard Hadlee	86	33	8
Shane Warne	145	46	8
Wasim Akram	104	43	7
Shivnarine Chanderpaul	164	60	7
Malcolm Marshall	81	21	6
Curtly Ambrose	98	27	6
Steve Waugh	168	54	6
Ravichandran Ashwin	32	12	5