 "Ravichandran Ashwin")
At the toss when Nasser Hussain asked about the playing 11 from Rohit Sharna, the Indian captain, who had won the toss and decided to field first, said that they are going in with only one spinner. On being asked who is that one spinner, he said, ‘Ravindra Jadeja’. It meant that Ravichandran Ashwin, the bowler who has picked the most wickets in this Worth Test Championship (WTC) cycle for the Indian team was out of the playing 11 in the final match.
On why Ashwin missed out, Rohit said, “It's always tough (to leave Ashwin), he's been a match-winner for us over the course of so many years. But you got to do the things that are needed for the team and eventually, we came up with that decision.”
But was this needed for the management has made a huge mistake by not playing Ashwin? There are several reasons to support this argument.
Australia have four left-handers as main batters
The Australian team is playing with five left-handed batters, out of which four of them are playing only as batters. Ashwin would have been more effective than any other bowler with his off-spinners against the likes of David Warner, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, and Alex Carey. The 34-year-old Indian is the only bowler in the history of Test cricket to have dismissed left-handers 200 times.
Ashwin is the best bowler in the Indian squad
In the WTC cycle of 2021-23, Ashwin is the best Indian bowler with 61 wickets in 26 innings at an average of less than 20. His average is the best among the players with more than 50 wickets in this cycle. Thus, by no stretch of the imagination should a team not play its best bowler in the final of a tournament where they have reached because of him.
More From This Section
Ashwin was the best bowler in the WTC Final 2021
In the last final of the WTC, Ashwin was India’s best bowler with six wickets to his name. In the second innings, he was the only bowler to take wickets for India. And the two wickets he took, were all of left-handed batters. The logic that Ashwin is not good in SENA countries and thereby India are better off playing with only Jadeja who can also bat a bit, is flawed.
The Oval supports spin more than any other ground
The Oval is by far the best place for spinners to bowl in England. In the 10 matches that have ended in a result in the last decade, spinners have taken 89 out of 330 wickets.
This is almost 27 per cent of the total. In the fourth innings, the percentage increases to 37.5 with spinners taking 36 out of 96 wickets to fall. With the weather conditions forecast to be sunny throughout and the third and fourth innings having great relevance in the game, it is only a waste to not play your best spinner.
The replacements haven’t worked
Umesh Yadav seems to be the pacer preferred over Ashiwn. And so far he has not been able to come good in the first two sessions of the first day. So far, he has bowled six overs, going for 27 runs and never looked like picking a wicket. Shardul Thakur would have been the obvious choice to play alongside Ashwin given that he is a very good batter as well.
Ashwin is handy with the bat too
By playing Umesh instead of Ashwin, India are also losing out in batting. He has scored 232 runs at a decent average of 25.78 and the highest score of 46* in the 12 innings that he has batted in England. Against Australia and in Australia, his batting average is 24 with two fifties to his name.
