Ravichandran Ashwin

Full name Ravichandran Ashwin

Born September 17, 1986, Madras (now Chennai), Tamil Nadu

Current age 26 years 259 days

Major teams India, Chennai Super Kings, Tamil Nadu

Playing role Bowler

Batting style Right-hand bat

Bowling style Right-arm offbreak

Batting and fielding averages

	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	BF	SR	100	50	4s	6s	Ct	St
Tests	16	22	5	616	103	36.23	981	62.79	1	3	74	5	3	0
ODIs	48	28	10	331	38	18.38	397	83.37	0	0	27	2	6	0
T20Is	18	5	3	53	17*	26.50	44	120.45	0	0	6	1	3	0
First-class	51	67	17	1786	107*	35.72	3053	58.49	3	10	251	6	18	0
List A	88	52	16	750	79	20.83	984	76.21	0	2	57	6	21	0
Twenty20	114	35	13	216	23*	9.81	215	100.46	0	0	22	3	27	0

Bowling averages

	Mat	Inns	Balls	Runs	Wkts	BBI	BBM	Ave	Econ	SR	4w	5w	10
Tests	16	31	5433	2625	92	7/103	12/85	28.53	2.89	59.0	1	9	2
ODIs	48	47	2599	2088	66	3/24	3/24	31.63	4.82	39.3	0	0	0
T20Is	18	18	425	530	14	2/16	2/16	37.85	7.48	30.3	0	0	0
First-class	51	88	13927	6394	226	7/103	12/85	28.29	2.75	61.6	2	20	5
List A	88	87	4761	3572	114	3/24	3/24	31.33	4.50	41.7	0	0	0
Twenty20	114	112	2506	2791	117	4/18	4/18	23.85	6.68	21.4	1	0	0

Recent matches

Bat & Bowl	Team	Opposition	Ground	Match Date	Scorecard
0/45	India	v Sri Lanka	Birmingham	1 Jun 2013	Other OD
0/22, 9	Super Kings	v Mum Indians	Kolkata	26 May 2013	T20
0/17	Super Kings	v Mum Indians	Delhi	21 May 2013	T20
0/21	Super Kings	v RCB	Bangalore	18 May 2013	T20
2/19	Super Kings	v Daredevils	Chennai	14 May 2013	T20
0/23	Super Kings	v Royals	Jaipur	12 May 2013	T20
1/23	Super Kings	v Sunrisers	Hyderabad (Deccan)	8 May 2013	T20
1/11, 2	Super Kings	v Mum Indians	Mumbai	5 May 2013	T20
1/33	Super Kings	v Kings XI	Chennai	2 May 2013	T20
0/20	Super Kings	v Warriors	Pune	30 Apr 2013	T20

Profile

R Ashwin is a tall offspinner who took the soduku ball, a finger-flicked tennis-ball legbreak, from the streets of Chennai and used it effectively in international cricket on a bigger, harder cricket ball. His inspiration was Ajantha Mendis' carrom ball. Even before Mendis had played for Sri Lanka and bamboozled India's heavyweight Test line-up in one series, this 21-year-old saw him in a game in Chennai and went home convinced it could be done with a cricket ball too. In his first season of first-class cricket back then, Ashwin put his long fingers to tireless work on that variation. Soon after Mendis had became a brief phenomenon, Ashwin unleashed it.

That carrom ball, an arm ball just as good, his control over his offbreaks, and a sharp brain made Ashwin a quintessential limited-overs spinner, but in Test cricket he followed a brief period of struggle, against England in 2012-13, with a return to classical offspin basics and began using the variations sparingly. Ashwin's success was what India desperately needed at a time when Anil Kumble had retired and Harbhajan Singh was on the wane.

Ashwin is one of the rare players who came into the public's reckoning through the IPL and yet was good enough to hold his own in bigger forms of cricket. For his IPL franchise, he opened the bowling, bowled at death, came on when wickets were required, and was the Man of the Series in the 2010 Champions League played in South Africa.

Ashwin's success in T20 cricket earned him a call-up to the national side, ODI firsts and inevitably the Tests in 2011-12. He was a part of the winning squad in the 2011 World Cup, but rarely got a chance ahead of Harbhajan. The senior offspinner, though, soon provided him with more opportunities and Ashwin kept on building a phenomenal body of work. He took nine wickets in his maiden Test, the second-highest by an Indian debutant after Narendra Hirwani's 16, and won the Man-of-the-Match award. It only got better: he registered nine five-fors in his first 16 Tests and was a genuine threat to Erapalli Prasanna's Indian record of the march to 100 wickets in 20 Tests.

An opener with the bat before he took up offspin, Ashwin is more than a handy lower-order batsman: he is correct, has the shots and scored a century in his first Test series.