As R Ashwin marks his 100th Test appearance, Aadya Sharma looks back at the 2017 Bengaluru Test, one of his finest and most memorable performances.

The whole series was a mad, mad sensory overload. You couldn’t skip a beat – there was a melee of the brilliant and bizarre happening all the time. Grown men were making faces at each other, others were having brain-fades. There was sledging and banter of the vicious kind. The off-field chatter was incessant. The on-field cricket was incredible.

The craziness reached a peak in Bengaluru, powered by India’s itch to neutralise the 0-1 trail. Seven years since, it remains one of India’s most memorable comebacks, the closest they have come to losing a home series in the last decade. On the cusp of the 100-Test landmark, R Ashwin – one of two survivors from that game – counted it among his finest outings.

In many ways, the Bengaluru Test was a celebration of who Ashwin really is: ridiculously competitive, bloody smart and a master of his trade.

For about half the Test, India were struggling to keep up. Having been shot out twice for 100-something in Pune, the home team, not used to such treatment on their own shores, had been cracked open again by Nathan Lyon’s eight-wicket haul in the first innings. After three days of chasing and being chased, India managed to set a target of 188.

The entire series turned around on day four.

***

Me and my friends watched two days of the Test – the second and fourth, each with excessively contrasted emotions. With demand for tickets soaring, only the square-leg view was available on the fourth. The day began with hope from locals, but by lunch, six Indian wickets had fallen for 61 runs.

As David Warner and Matt Renshaw walked out, our group chatted away over oily vegetable rolls and 7UP cans in the Upper G Stand, happy to get hit by the breeze on an otherwise warm day. India had to go for the kill, so it wasn’t surprising when Ashwin shared the new ball with Ishant Sharma, activating his famed match-up against Warner.

The next 35 overs played out like a dream, and it started with Ashwin versus Warner (who else).

In the first innings, Warner had been flummoxed by a peach, sitting on the back foot and watching a ball turn from outside leg to take out his off stump. There were at least two instances when Ashwin nearly pulled it off again, but Warner’s outside edge saved him. When he tried the reverse sweep and missed, you knew he was rattled.

A few overs later, Warner stepped out, a clear plan to negate the rough patch outside his leg stump. He clattered one for six. Always one for challenges, the surprise hit probably activated some extra neurones in Ashwin’s head.

First ball, next over, Ashwin switched sides. He bowled fuller and faster, sliding through Warner’s attempted sweep. No bat, all pad, but outside off to the naked eye.

Ball-tracking wasn’t convincing: replays showed a tiny speckle of the ball had hit him in line. Warner wasn’t happy, but it didn’t matter. India were latching onto whatever tiny margins they got.

Thoughts? #INDvAUS pic.twitter.com/8IShFKKzh9

— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) March 7, 2017

It opened the gates for Ashwin’s massacre.

Mitchell Marsh, not quite the Test player he is today, couldn’t combat sharp turn from outside off, stepping to one side and glancing it to leg slip. From our view at square leg – they were really cheap tickets – we couldn’t really appreciate the turn, but could understand how Ashwin floated and skidded the ball as he pleased, feasting on the low, turning track.

74-3 became 101-5. Somehow, on a Tuesday, the Chinnaswamy was packed and buzzing.

Egged on by the crowd, Ashwin – a man of cinema – laid out his variations. In signature style, he bowled with several actions through the Test: the Steve-Harmison-like high-arm action, the close-to-chest-and-won’t-reveal-the-ball run-in, and a couple of more conventional ones – teasing, testing, tearing the Aussies up.

The tourists spluttered, choked and passed out. It wasn’t a battle anymore, it was puppetry on display. Ravindra Jadeja, from the other end, was sprinting through his overs, tightening the noose.

From our vantage points, we couldn’t see the turn. But we could see how Ashwin smartly changed his speed and flight: when it hit the rough, it shot through. We also saw Steve Smith’s brain-fade, requesting help from the dressing room for a DRS decision, so flustered by the collapse that he forgot the rules of the game.

At the tea break, Australia only had Peter Handscomb, their “Asia specialist”, and Mitchell Starc for defiance. They needed 87, India four wickets.

The first ball Starc faced after the break was flat and on the stumps. He defended it without any trouble. One over later, Ashwin pitched it on the exact same spot, but it floated more. Starc tried to defend it the same way, but couldn’t judge the turn or pace, losing his off stump through a bat-pad gap.

Ashwin, sweating profusely, tapped his finger on his forehead, repeating Starc’s send-off to Ashwin earlier in the Test. You just couldn’t outthink him. You could only hope to survive the next one. On his walk back, Starc sheepishly smiled.

Aptly, Ashwin dismissed Lyon for the final dismissal, gleefully accepting a tame return catch. In a way, it completed the transfer of power: Lyon’s eight-for couldn’t do what Ashwin’s six-for had.

Years later, we remember the six-for, but it’s really his first-innings figures that silently changed the Test. For 49 overs, Ashwin kept Australia tied up, his economy of 1.70 an incredible little symbol of fight.

“The wicket was damp [in the first innings], it was wet on the first day and when we started bowling it literally stopped turning,” Ashwin recalled in 2020. “It was just straightening up.”

In the dressing room, coach Anil Kumble gave Ashwin a bank of ideas.

“Anil bhai, we have to be patient,” Ashwin told the coach. “I know we are behind in the series. But somehow it’s not happening”.

The pressure was on: “You have to do it,” said Kumble.

India probably have Renshaw to thank: it was a verbal exchange in the first innings that really fired up Ashwin. Bowling in the rough, a few balls had gone close to short leg. “Renshaw had a smirk on his face as if to suggest they were on top of the game,” Ashwin remembers.

“All of a sudden, I got really angry because I was not getting wickets. I told him, ‘you better not defend and make these runs, because if you don’t make these runs, in the fourth innings you won’t be able to make 100 runs’.”

As it turned out, Australia managed 112 – 75 fewer than what they needed. The Bengaluru Tuesday crowd, now packed shoulder to shoulder, roared in celebration.

About fifty Tests, ten five-wicket hauls, and 250 Test wickets later, Ashwin remains the champion that he was that evening: competitive, shrewd, and a master of his trade.

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