India vs Sri Lanka: Ravichandran Ashwin's adaptability, all-round skills augurs well for South Africa

South Africa holds many ghosts for the Indian team and its players. Not the least being the horror of getting bundled out for 100 and 66 in 1996, at a time when the home side was desperate to portray to the world that they were the cat’s whiskers. There were persistent whispers then that pitches were being prepared and rolled breadth-wise, rather than the conventional length-wise to make the taller South African bowlers’ landing areas peppier. Of course, most of this talk was brushed aside. In time, a shell-shocked India even managed to win in South Africa. But the ghosts have not gone away. [caption id=“attachment_4229663” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Ravichandran Ashwin celebrates the dismissal of Dilruwan Perera on Day 4 of the 2nd Test. AP[/caption] Certainly not for Ravichandran Ashwin. In the only Test he played in South Africa, in Johannesburg four years ago, Ashwin failed to pick up a wicket and was promptly dropped for the next one. Hence, when India return in 2018, he will have something to prove. Of course he is older, wiser and more skilled than at any stage of his career and that should certainly help. The most pleasing aspect of Ashwin’s performance on Monday was that he did not allow his captain’s reluctance to utilise his services get to him. He knew he still had to prove himself whenever he got the opportunity to bowl. In the meantime, he worked out a strategy to counter the Lankans. He chose to come around the wicket and whenever the ball did not break back, it was angled towards slip. One such delivery accounted for Mathews. He played for the turn but the ball went straight, took his edge on its way to the wicket-keeper’s gloves. Ashwin’s ability to adapt would be an asset in most conditions. On Monday he was willing to bowl slower, toss the ball up and impart greater revolutions on the ball. This saw him get good purchase off the wicket. A sharper forward short-leg could have helped dismiss a couple of more batsmen, especially as Ashwin was getting the odd delivery to bounce and turn. On the downside, if it could be called that, the tall, lanky off-spinner tends to experiment a bit too regularly for the fielding team captain’s comfort. The doosra or even the conventional leg-spin, which he tries quite often, forces the captain to deploy a split field whereas a 6-3 field could be more restrictive and even productive at times. Ashwin likes to vary the direction of spin and this sometimes results in loose deliveries that yield easy runs for the opposition. It is possible that Kohli is unhappy with the bowler giving away these easy runs and hence prefers the more defensive Ravindra Jadeja to bottle things up. But that hardly deters Ashwin. His primary aim is to get wickets and his record of over 300 wickets in 55 Tests justifies his tactics. On Monday, when it looked like the Test was meandering with Sri Lanka at 256 for three in reply to India’s total of 536, he shook things up by getting rid of Mathews, and later another couple of wickets. Suddenly, Sri Lanka do not look safe anymore. Ashwin has been the catalyst once again and the manner in which he has stirred up the Test augurs well for his team. Ashwin, at this stage of his career, is probably a more convincing all-rounder at Test level than Hardik Pandya. He is a frontline bowler and as a batsman with four centuries and 11 fifties he has been a lot more productive. Thus, if the team falls back on just one all-rounder in the near future, Ashwin would logically be the one to turn to. The Tamil Nadu cricketer has everything going for him. He is an effective late order batsman, world class off-spinner and an asset to the team. Perhaps the skipper could coax him to specialise as slip fielder. His huge hands could probably latch on to catches better than some of the other fielders passing off as specialists in that area. An effective Ashwin, chipping in with bat and ball, would be vital for India’s success in South Africa. Putting him in the right frame of mind ahead of that tour would help get the best out of him. The Lanka series should therefore be seen as part of that effort to get his competitive juices flowing.