Poll: Is Ravichandran Ashwin the best Indian off-spin bowler ever?
Poll: Is Ravichandran Ashwin the best Indian off-spin bowler ever?
Ravichandran Ashwin’s rise as an international cricketer has been phenomenal to say the least. Currently, the best Indian spinner across formats, Ashwin claimed 21 wickets in the recently concluded three-match Test series against Sri Lanka at an average of just over 18.
He won the Man-of-the-series and what impressed everyone is the way he troubled Kumar Sangakkara, who widely regarded as the best batsman of his century. In all the four innings that they faced each other, Ashwin managed to outfox Sangakkara and dismiss him.
India have seen some great off-spin bowlers and Ashwin has done enough to be considered as one of the greatest. Here are the other successful off-spinners to have played for India.
| Players | M | Balls | Runs | Wkts | BBI | BBM | Ave | Econ | SR | 5w | 10 |
| R Ashwin | 28 | 8236 | 4125 | 145 | 7/103 | 12/85 | 28.4 | 3.0 | 56.8 | 12 | 3 |
| Harbhajan Singh | 103 | 28580 | 13537 | 417 | 8/84 | 15/217 | 32.5 | 2.8 | 68.5 | 35 | 5 |
| E Prasanna | 49 | 14253 | 5742 | 189 | 8/76 | 11/140 | 30.4 | 2.4 | 75.9 | 10 | 2 |
| S Venkataraghavan | 57 | 14877 | 5634 | 156 | 8/72 | 12/152 | 36.1 | 2.3 | 95.3 | 3 | 1 |
| Ghulam Ahmed | 22 | 5650 | 2052 | 68 | 7/49 | 10/130 | 30.2 | 2.2 | 83.0 | 4 | 1 |
Ashwin and Harbhajan Singh have played in the modern times. While Harbhajan for more than a decade has been one of India’s foremost match winners, Ashwin now seems to be perfectly fitting into his role.
Erapalli Prasanna played in the 1960s and 70s, an era when India mainly relied on their spin-attack to compete. Many cricket greats including Ian Chappell rated Prasanna as the best spinner of that time.
Srinivas Venkataraghavan, who had the privilege to captain India, played in the same era as Prasanna, while Ghulam Ahmed played most of his cricket in the 50s. It’s difficult to compare players from different era but taking these above parameters into consideration, we have come up with this poll.