XtraTime Web Desk: India’s ace spinner Ravichandran Ashwin will hope to revive his career in shorter format as cricket restarts with the Indian Premier League (IPL 2020) in Dubai in September. The former Kings XI captain, who has switched his loyalty to Delhi Capitals, will hope to put up a stunning performance in the cash rich league. The off-spinner from Tamil Nadu played his last T20I against West Indies at Kingston on July 9, 2017. His last ODI was against the same opponents at North Sound on June 30. The emergence of Washington Sundar, Yuzuvendra Chahal and Kuldeep Yadav has somewhat pushed back 33 year old Ashwin’s white ball career.
Ashwin, who hails from Chennai, had a late start to his career. The BTech graduate in Information Technology learnt the first lessons of cricket from his father Ravichandran, who was a fast bowler at club level. He was coached by CK Vijay and Chandra at the cricket academy of St Bede’s Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School. It was here he was asked to change his bowling style from a medium pacer to a spinner. Till his U17 days he played as an opener, even representing the India U17 team. But a sudden lack of form saw him getting replaced by Rohit Sharma. A string of failures got him dropped from the team as well.
Having achieved little success as an opening batsman at junior-level cricket, Ashwin decided to concentrate more on his off spin. Initial success with age level teams earned him a place in the Tamil Nadu Ranji Trophy team in 2006. But it was not until the 2010 Indian Premier League in which he played for the Chennai Super Kings, that he came into the limelight with his economical bowling and earned his maiden international call-up in the limited-overs formats in June 2010.
He went on to become the joint fastest bowler in the history of test cricket to claim 350 wickets along with Muttiah Muralitharan. He is now the fifth most successful bowler (365 wickets in 71 tests) for India in test cricket, behind the likes of Anil Kumble (619), Kapil Dev (434), Harbhajan Singh (417) and Zaheer Khan (311).
Ashwin had a memorable debut test series against West Indies in 2011. In the third test match at Wankhede, he scored his maiden test ton as also claimed five wickets (5/156) which earned him the Man of the Match award. Since, making his test debut, Ashwin has so far played 71 test matches claiming 365 wickets at an average of 25.43. While in his 111 ODIs he picked 150 wickets at 32.91. In 46 T20Is he has 52 wickets in his bag so far. The highlight of his test career was picking 29 wickets in the four match home test series against Australia.
Ashwin was also part of the 2011 World Cup and 2013 Champions Trophy winning sides. His figures of 2/15 in four overs in the 20-overs-a-side final at Edgbaston helped India win by 5 runs.
With four centuries in his Test career so far, Ashwin has earned the reputation of being a bowling all-rounder. For his performances in 2016, the International Cricket Council named Ashwin as the ICC Cricketer of the Year and the ICC Test Cricketer of the Year. With his immaculate flight and control, coupled with carom ball, Ravichandran Ashwin is ready to make a strong statement in white ball format.