When the Indian team for the 2017 Champions Trophy was picked, there was an anomaly in the squad list. For the first time in a long while, only two front-line spinners – Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja – were named in the squad, as the selectors opted for an additional middle-order batsman.
It made obvious sense. The tournament is being played in the first half of the English summer, and this has been a wet June with almost all games threatened by rain. Hardik Pandya has matured as a seam-bowling all-rounder, and India’s pace attack is perhaps their best in the past two decades.
It left a lot of possible combinations for Virat Kohli to choose from, and he went in with the one that was best considering the opposition/conditions on Sunday.
“Ashwin is a high-class bowler. Everyone knows that,” said Kohli in London on Wednesday. “And he is very professional as well. He understood the dynamic of the side that we picked in the last game, and he was absolutely fine with it. He told me, ‘I support you whatever you want to do’. That’s always been our equation.”
Nothing out of ordinary in Virat's pc today. Lot of talk about Ashwin though. Wondering if he will be in contention tomorrow. #CT17 #IndvSL
— Chetan Narula (@chetannarula) June 7, 2017
Let it be said here that picking only one spinner (plus three pacers and Pandya) against Pakistan was the right call, and the 124-run win proved as much. Let it also be highlighted that opting for Jadeja ahead of Ashwin too was the correct choice.
When you talk about the two spinners, in consideration for only the shorter formats, Jadeja always comes ahead of Ashwin in terms of his athleticism as well as fielding ability, never mind anything else.
Of course, this Indian squad has been picked for the Champions Trophy alone. However, India do play a lot of ODI cricket overseas in the next two years leading up to the 2019 World Cup, also to be held in England.
Does it put Ashwin’s place in doubt for the near foreseeable future, though? Could India, thinking about how they only needed two spinners this summer, look for another (read younger and fitter) option for that big tournament in two years’ time?
It is speculative at best, but at this juncture, Ashwin’s ODI record comes into focus. He is a completely different bowler in Test cricket of course, but his numbers from the 50-overs format aren’t too bad either. 145 sticks from 105 matches at an average of 32.37 and an impressive economy of 4.91 is par for course in this era of slam-bang.
Much of it is reflected from the wondrous start Ashwin experienced in his initial years. He was among the first IPL sensations to make the leap to international cricket, the ‘carrom ball’ expert, and additionally, he was never afraid to innovate in limited-overs cricket. There is a worrying trend starting to creep into his bowling though.
At home, over the years, his economy has steadily risen to 5.09. In the last two years, since the 2015 ODI World Cup, Ashwin has given away runs at 6.37 per over in home conditions. Overseas, his career economy stands at 5.05 in 37 matches, again on the higher side compared to his early years.
This is where another glaring aspect of Ashwin’s ODI bowling comes to the fore. In the last five ODIs that Ashwin has featured in, he only completed his quota of overs in three of them. It stretches back to the Australian limited-overs tour in early 2016, where he returned 2-68 from nine overs at Perth and then 0-60 in a completed spell at Brisbane.
He was rested against New Zealand in October 2016, as the Indian selectors looked to manage his workload in a long home season. Ashwin then returned against England in January earlier this year, but failed to complete his quota of overs in Pune (0-63 from eight overs) and Kolkata (0-60 from nine overs) again. In Cuttack, where Kohli did deploy him for a completed spell, Ashwin returned 3-65.
Great team effort, studded with some outstanding individual performances. Well done Team India. @imVkohli @imjadeja @YUVSTRONG12 @ImRo45 👏
— Ashwin Ravichandran (@ashwinravi99) June 4, 2017
There is a school of thought that this data is not enough to form an informed opinion about Ashwin’s waning utility in the ODI arena. It could have been a bigger sample size had he played against the Blackcaps last autumn. However, it doesn’t escape attention that it was Ashwin’s poor showing in Australia (January 2016) that prompted then skipper MS Dhoni to try out a different bowling combination.
After Brisbane, India tried Gurkeerat Singh Mann and Rishi Dhawan over the next three ODIs in Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney. In one way, it was the start of the team management’s search for a pace-bowling all-rounder for this Champions Trophy (and possibly the 2019 World Cup), one that ended with Pandya.
In another way, that was a question mark over Ashwin’s utility in ODIs. Will India answer it against Sir Lanka at the Oval on Thursday, a side replete with left-handers?
