Sanjay Manjrekar has explained why, in his opinion, Ravichandran Ashwin cannot be labelled an all-time great and his reasoning did not go down well with social media.

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Ian Chappell commented on the ESPNCricinfo show ‘Runorder’ that Ashwin is one of the best Test bowlers going around, but Manjrekar, also a part of the show, pointed out that he has a problem “when people start talking about him as being one of the all-time greats of the game”.

Manjrekar cited the overseas record of Ashwin and the performance of Ravindra Jadeja and recently Axar Patel when playing alongside him to rubbish the notion that Ashwin an all-time great.

“One basic problem I have with Ashwin is that when you look at SENA countries, Ashwin doesn’t have a single five-wicket haul there. And the other thing when you talk about him running through sides on Indian pitches that are suited to his kind of bowling is that in the last four years, Jadeja has matched him with wicket-taking abilities. Then, interestingly, in the last series against England, Axar Patel got more wickets than Ashwin on similar pitches. So that is my problem with accepting Ashwin as a real all-time great,” Manjrekar said

Chappell pointed out the example of Joel Garner to say that Ashwin is surrounded by great bowlers and the “wickets are shared around”, but Manjrekar’s comments did not go unnoticed on social media where several people questioned his logic.

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Sanjay ManjrekarRavichandran Ashwin