Ashwin took four wickets in the second innings to become the fastest bowler to 300 Test wickets; helped hosts complete an innings-&-239-run victory over Sri

LankaRavichandran Ashwin smiled an academic, near apologetic smile. The wicket-keeper and the close-in cordon ambled to greet him. His colleagues from the

far-flung outposts quizzically peered at the big screen as the umpire sought further confirmation as to whether it was Ashwin’s carrom ball or the wicketkeeper’s

hand that had disturbed Lahiru Gamage’s off-bail. Kohli and Co, meanwhile, had one hand on the souvenir stumps. No sooner had the the telly umpire confirmed

it than Kohli pulled one out and gave it to Ashwin. With a reluctant grin, Ashwin waved the stumps at the audience, before he began scrapping the dirt at the

base of the stump.

Whether or not Ashwin would get his 300th — or, indeed, Umesh his 100th — was the only strand of suspense that remained in the match once Sri Lanka’s top-

order wilted like thatched huts in a storm. They eventually stumbled to an innings-and-239-run defeat, the heaviest in their history, and they had to thank the

breezy little ninth-wicket partnership between Dinesh Chandimal and Suranga Lakmal for reducing its margin.

A devastated Nic Pothas, Sri Lanka’s interim coach, lyrically put their subjugation in perspective, “I believe cricket is a game of chess, for every move there

should be a counter move. We just didn’t have a counter move.”

But it was a day when even Ravichandran Ashwin, the most nerdish of Indian bowlers, didn’t have to ponder too deep before plotting a move. There were no

intense, cat-and-mouse passages of play, an art he has nuanced in the last couple of years. He needn’t fiddle with his lengths or lines too often, or summon his

full bag of trickery. He just relied on his natural variations and the marginal assistance he was getting from the pitch to scythe through the tail-end of Sri

Lanka’s innings. Only when Lakmal began to ride on an unbelievable amount of luck did he begin to play around with his tools more often. Eventually, it was the

carrom ball that fetched him the 300th. There was a sense of propriety to it, because it was this variation of his that was widely raved about when he burst onto

the scene on a balmy Feroz Shah Kotla November morning seven years ago. Maybe, Ashwin picking his 300th at that ground — which hosts the next Test —

would have fused a sense of symmetry.

A steep upward curve
Then again, Nagpur is not an inapt venue to trace his metamorphosis, or the ludicrously steep upward curve his career has traced between the two Tests at

Jamtha — the first against South Africa in 2015 and this one. He took 12/98 versus South Africa and 8/130 in this match. Neither is symbolic, or fully reflective

of his career, and the leaps it has taken in between. The first came on perhaps the most under-prepared strip India has played in the last decade, a spitting

cobra of a wicket. The second was a usual slothful Nagpur surface, where if Sri Lanka’s batting were more purposeful or motivated, he would have had to earn

his wickets, and the fruits of the labour would have been sweeter.

Between the two Nagpur Tests, he has picked a whopping 123 sticks in 22 Tests, at an average of 24.44. A bulk of those Tests were nabbed at home, or the

home-like conditions of Sri Lanka and the West Indies, where some of the pitches in the Test series last year were as dry as those in Asia. But the recurring

theme, most often, was that he didn’t always need the elements to facilitate his wreckages. He executed it by combining the old-fashioned tools of spin

bowling, such as flight, dip, loop and ripping turn, with the new-age deception kit of doosras, carrom balls and sliders (occasionally leg-breaks and seam-ups

too), which makes it difficult to typify him. An orthodox experimentalist, or a radical conventionalist, or a first-of-a-kind hybrid offie, or someone who just keeps

up with the times. Just like the best batsmen of this generation who don’t compromise on the orthodoxy of the game, but have expanded its scope and canvas.

While Ashwin’s experimental streak has been criticised in the past, it now rings conclusively hollow, not least when he’s picking wickets a such a consistent clip,

winning en route five man-of-the-series plaques on the spin.

“A lot of people have asked me why I experiment too much. But I have always been that way and unless you experiment, you don’t know how good or bad it can

be. You might fail, but then you also come know that it doesn’t work for you and look to change,” he had said sometime ago.

In any case, his staggering numbers should transcend geographical constrictions. To pick so many wickets and milestones at such mind-boggling frequency, even

if it has been mostly accomplished at home, is no less glittering a feat. The man he surpassed to be the fastest to 300-wickets-mark—Dennis Lillee—himself

validates this argument. He has played only four Tests in Asia — three in Pakistan, one in Sri Lanka and none in India. He took a combined haul of six wickets,

at 68.33. Muttiah Muralitharan averaged 75 in Australia and 45 in India. He had terrific records in England (48 at 19.20), New Zealand (30 at 19.96) and South

Africa (37 at 26), but Muralitharan was a different beast.

Even Kumble, when his picked his 300th wicket, had hideous aggregates outside Asia — 90 in Australia, 63 in England, 40 in New Zealand and 35 in South

Africa. Ashwin’s corresponding figures are better — 54 in Australia and 33 in England while he went wicketless in his only Test in South Africa. But from the 2002

tour to England, Kumble was a more penetrative force abroad. Kumble is hopeful that Ashwin too will turn the corner around.

“I was around the same age as him (31), when I began bowing well abroad. So I’m sure that given the way Ashwin has matured over the years, he has the tools

to succeed abroad,” he said in a recent function in Delhi.

Ashwin himself, in his post-match interview with bcci.tv, said he was confident of ticking perhaps the only box that remains unchecked. He asserts he’s not too

piqued by the criticism, rather he’s looking forward to “bowling without any mental baggages” abroad. But to prove himself, who he says is his fiercest critic, he

would envisage a reversal of overseas fortunes. The celebrations then would be bubblier and louder.