Ashwin is the best spinner in the world: Ravi Shastri

There was a difficult phase after 2018 when Ravichandran Ashwin’s inclusion to the Indian squad was questioned vehemently. Wickets were hard to come by and he was struggling a lot to even get noticed.

To make matters worse for him, the pair of Kul-Cha was on the rise and India was on the brink of a spin revolution. However, miracles do happen.

Unfortunately for the emerging spinning duo, the offing was as austere as it could get while Ashwin started finding his feet back. Being the stringent teacher Shastri was, he made things very clear to Ashwin.

Ashwin said on the Indian Express eAdda that he was absolutely crushed by Shastri’s comments. Shastri responded, “One thing as a coach, let me tell you... my job out there is not to butter everyone's toast. My job is, without agenda, to state facts and say the way it is. Ashwin didn't play the Test match in Sydney. Kuldeep played, took a five-for, and bowled brilliantly. So, it was only fair that I give the young kid who is probably playing his first or second Test match overseas...and he bowled magnificently in that Test match. He bowled as well as any spinner overseas in that Test match. So, I said the way he's bowled here, there's every chance he could be India's No.1 [spin] bowler overseas.”

He continued, “Now if that hurt some other player, then I would say good. In hindsight, I'm glad I made that statement and Ashwin has made this statement because if it hurt him and he was upset, I'm glad the way he went about his job. I'm the kind of coach who will want a player to go inside and say 'I'm going to show his coach I'm going to teach him a lesson and show him what I'm all about.”

He continued, “So, if it upset him, I'm very happy. If it made him do something different, which he did, I'm very happy because the way he was bowling in 2019 and the way he bowled in 2021 in Australia was chalk and cheese. I'll go for the cheese any day. And by the way being thrown under the bus, Ash need not worry because I'd already spoken to the bus driver and told him to stop two feet short."

After copping a couple of rocking blows, Ashwin had to warm the benches for a while. However, he was back to his former scintillating self with an extraordinary display in 2021 that saw him hammering oppositions at will.

Shastri said, “It was a message clearly to him that you've got to be fit. We need players to play the whole series. So, that happened in 2018 and 2019 again he was injured. So, what did he do after that in those two years? I think he's worked harder on his game than anybody else and he's world-class.”

Shastri concluded by saying, "Let me tell you he's the best spinner in the world now. The way he's bowling now and the way he's worked on his fitness and if you look at the way he's bowling of late, I think he has a great opportunity now that he's the lone frontline spinner there in South Africa to go out there and win the series for India."