India off-spinner R Ashwin has opened up on the perceptions surrounding his abilities outside the subcontinent, saying he’s grappling with his own benchmarks in a bid to become a truly well-rounded bowler.
Ashwin has arguably been India’s greatest match-winner since the retirement of Anil Kumble. With 365 wickets, the Tamil Nadu spinner is India’s fourth-most prolific bowler in Test history. Moreover, those scalps have come at a spectacular rate, in just 71 Tests.
However, there is a stark difference in his records inside the subcontinent and off it. Ashwin’s average of 42.76 in the SENA countries (South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia), long considered to be a benchmark of greatness for Asian players, is well below his career average of 25.43.
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Five of his seven Player-of-the-Match-winning performances have come in India, with the other two having been achieved in the West Indies. The numbers are similar for Player-of-the-Series-winning performances, where Sri Lanka and West Indies are the exceptions.
“I’m actually fighting my own benchmarks in a lot of ways,” Ashwin told ESPNcricinfo. “The number of games that I’ve managed to win for my country and for myself, the number of successes I’ve had and the excellence I’ve shown is always measured up in equal parlance when I travel away from the country, which is great.”
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Ashwin has struggled to cement his spot in India’s overseas XI, often conceding his place to left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja, who is India’s first-choice spinner outside the subcontinent, including during their tour of New Zealand earlier this year, when Ashwin played the first Test and made way for Jadeja for the second.
“Increasingly, with the number of games I’ve played in England, I’ve started realising that for a spinner to be bowling in alien conditions and to be able to repeat similar numbers at home, you need to be bowling at all the possible right times of the game, first,” Ashwin said.
“And secondly, you do need a little bit of luck. After 2014, when I had that South Africa game, I’ve taken a very serious look at my numbers, and those numbers have significantly increased very, very well.”
