Thinking bowler who could outperform batters: Harbhajan on Ashwin

Brisbane: The off-spinners club lost its biggest star when R Ashwin announced his retirement in Brisbane on Wednesday. He wasn’t selected for the Gabba Test and perhaps being on the bench strengthened his opinion.

In a short, emotional announcement, Ashwin ended a career that in many ways defied the odds. He ended his career with 106 Tests with 537 wickets in which India scaled the legendary heights of the game.

Before Ashwin came on the scene, Harbhajan Singh was India’s most successful off-spinner and he was at the Gabba as a commentator having a great time in his international career.

The 44-year-old had a quick chat with Hindustan Times to talk about what he thinks makes Ashwin so special.

Excerpts

How would you sum up Ashwin’s career?

He is a thinking cricketer and has naturally evolved over the years. His graph, if you see, from his early days to now… he has achieved all these milestones and won matches for India in all parts of the world. It just shows that he had the necessary skills and was mentally ready for the challenges at any time. He continued to add weapons to his arsenal and the Ashwin today is almost indistinguishable from the bowler he was when he made his debut. Stepping into the carrom ball or using the side spin or making it spin less – he could do anything. He was never predictable. Bring about the changes necessary to become relevant and effective at the same time. It’s not easy to try new things, but he was always willing to try.

He even tried leg spin…

Ha-Ha. Yes, he did, but it was good that he returned to off-spin. But he always had something planned. The batters didn’t know what was coming or what he was going to come up with. Sometimes the plot changed, sometimes the approach. With Ashwin, they never knew.

One criticism was that he had a lot of helpful wickets in India…

Yes, the wickets helped, but you still had to get the ball in the right place. And that shouldn’t diminish his achievements. At the same time, it is worth noting that other bowlers bowled on the same wickets, but how many have taken more than 500 wickets? So if the others have 300 and he has 500, he clearly did something better than the others. So, credit where it’s due, regardless of the pitches.

What will the Indian team miss most about him?

In my opinion a good all-rounder. His bowling alone would have made him irreplaceable, but he could also bat. Above all, he was a thinking cricketer who could outperform the batsmen. This is an invaluable gift.

Where do you rank him among India’s great off-spinners?

Well, it’s always unfair to compare across different eras. Each was great in its time and had a special quality. If you just look at it in terms of wickets, then Ashwin should be at the top. But from Prasanna to me, we have all tried to take Indian cricket forward in our own way and it must be said that Ashwin has strengthened that tradition even more.

Every great bowler has something that sets them apart from the crowd. What was it for Ashwin?

The carrom ball. When the Doosra came into play, it was something new. But he got the carrom ball and no one had seen anything like it. And it is very difficult to bowl this ball. It’s one thing to do it with the tennis ball and it’s a completely different thing to do it with the leather ball. It’s very difficult. You need a lot of strength in your fingers. I tried it many times, but it wasn’t until much later that I understood how it should bowl. So it wasn’t just the invention of new things that made him special, but also the fact that he acquired expertise in it.

During IPL 2019, Ashwin dropped Jos Buttler from the non-striker’s side for going back too far. Well, that’s something bowlers all over the world try to do…

He always believed that the shot belongs to the batter and the bowler. So whatever right the batters had, the bowlers also had it, and the same rules apply to both. So if you want to defeat him in this argument, it’s impossible. No cricketer becomes great without conviction and here Ashwin showed us what he really cared about. A man who wasn’t afraid to tell it like he saw it.