300 for Ashwin in tests : Fastest to get there.

[Vijy]

1 hour ago, Gollum said:

Ashwin is no Kapil Dev and when I say that I mean there will never be another Kapil Dev, stats don't do him justice. Modern Indian cricketers rest on the shoulders of 3 giants - Gavaskar, Kapil and Sachin, these 3 can never be emulated again. But Ashwin is a damn good cricketer and our greatest match winner since Virender Sehwag, possibly these 2 have won us max number of tests in our cricketing history. Even if Ashiwn hangs his boots today, he will retire as an Indian ATG but if he keeps up even 80% of this performance for another 4-5 years he will be a legit Hall of Famer. 

He's already an India Hall of Famer. Our 3rd best allrounder in history after Kapil and Mankad. Of course, he's an HTB but wins are wins.

Edited November 27, 2017 by Vijy

[surajmal]

He wants to get to 600. If he just focuses on tests and forgets ODIs, he can do it. 

[cowboysfan]

good achievement but can out bowl Mahraj  in the SA? can he out bowl Lyon when we visit australia?

[Muloghonto]

10 hours ago, rkt.india said:

Fred Trueman was not considered fast.

Fred Trueman was most definitely considered fast, as in express fast.

Also express bowlers pre-Lillee are : Charlie Griffiths, Wes Hall, Spofforth, Mike Proctor and Frank Tyson.

Of them, Griffiths and Tyson ran into trouble with the authorities (particularly Griffiths) for bowling beamers. 

Of this list, Truman, Hall & Proctor were also extremely high quality bowlers as well.

 

[Muloghonto]

9 hours ago, rkt.india said:

Ashwin is averaging in 30s with the bat with 4 100s and 11 50s, enough tests already played. Even if he retires today, he will be an Indian great. Most of the bowling alrounders have averaged in 30s whether it is Kapil, Botham, Imran, all of them. While Bhajji averaged 18 in tests. You are talking Kapil and other bowling alrounders averaged 50.

Today's averages are inflated. Ashwin in the 80s would be a 20 average guy. The difference between Kapil and Ashwin is, Kapil was a proper batsman- inconsistent, but a proper batsman. He could spank any spinner, any pacer on his day and score almost a run-a-ball 50. 
Ashwin can barely eke out a 50 every once in a while against decent bowling oppsition and only scores majority of his runs against really poor bowling. 
Kapil was a FAR better batsman than Ashwin.

 

[Muloghonto]

4 hours ago, Vijy said:

He's already an India Hall of Famer. Our 3rd best allrounder in history after Kapil and Mankad. Of course, he's an HTB but wins are wins.

Agreed.

Besides, the 'home track bully' is an overrated concept when it comes to spinners, particularly Asian spinners. 
There is precisely only ONE great spinner, who has great stats outside of the Indian subcontinent, without having a good pace attack to make early inroads: Muttiah Muralitharan.

This applies to English as well as Aussie bowlers, where in the era of rolled & covered pitches ( i.e., early 1950s onwards), there has been exactly ZERO successful English, West Indian or Australian spinner, who's succeeded but did not have a great pace attack to make early inroads consistently.

You can also see this in the stats differential for someone like Saqlain Mushtaq vs someone like Kumble. Saqlain has far better figures in England, Australia, South Africa, etc. Why ? because he had Wasim-Waqar to blow big holes in the opposition on those pitches. 

It makes a HUGE difference, whether the spinner is usually coming on at 40/3 or 50/1. 

 

[Muloghonto]

9 hours ago, putrevus said:

You don't expect your no7 to be consistent, is Ashwin consistent. Especially in days of Kapil tail was non existent. Like Sehwag Kapil also under achieved with bat.

The difference is, Ashwin cashes in against weak opposition (minus WI & Bangladesh, his batting average is 27.36.Yes, he can potter around for a 50 here and then against decent bowling (like vs England for e.g.). But Kapil, when he clicked, could murder the WI pace quartet or Imran or Botham-Willis or Hadlee with zero problems. 

 

[Malcolm Merlyn]

Larwood was fast for standards those days. There were other Pacers in 50s like Ray Lindwal, Frank Typhoon Tyson and then Wes Hall, charlie Griffith, Roy Gilchrist. Lilee maybe first in long time for australia.

Lindwall and Miller both were as good as Lillee then there was Alan Davidson.

The greatest fast bowler of 50s was Fred Trueman.

[Malcolm Merlyn]

Fred Trueman was not considered fast.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/wisdenalmanack/content/story/152412.html
http://www.cricketcountry.com/articles/fred-trueman-ndash-england-s-greatest-ever-fast-bowler-and-a-colourful-character-22810/amp/


He was FAST.

[Shunya]

Congrats Ashwin. ATG Indian bowler indeed. Hope he does the same for next 5 yrs atleast. 

[zaqw222222]

Well done to him for this achievement, hope he carries his form to abroad series

[Gollum]

4 hours ago, Muloghonto said:

Today's averages are inflated. Ashwin in the 80s would be a 20 average guy. The difference between Kapil and Ashwin is, Kapil was a proper batsman- inconsistent, but a proper batsman. He could spank any spinner, any pacer on his day and score almost a run-a-ball 50. 
Ashwin can barely eke out a 50 every once in a while against decent bowling oppsition and only scores majority of his runs against really poor bowling. 
Kapil was a FAR better batsman than Ashwin.

 

Spot on. Kapil was a gun batsman, he and Botham both were very good with the bat and kinda underachieved.

[Gollum]

5 hours ago, cowboysfan said:

good achievement but can out bowl Mahraj  in the SA? can he out bowl Lyon when we visit australia?

He outbowled Lyon last time in Australia in the 3 tests he played, that too when we were under the pump all the time.

[mishra]

Ashwin has pottential to outbowl any spinner. Not going by stats but watching LYon in Australia, I will rate Lyon as second best spinner.

[Gollum]

2 hours ago, mishra said:

Ashwin has pottential to outbowl any spinner. Not going by stats but watching LYon in Australia, I will rate Lyon as second best spinner.

What I love about both these guys is their action, clean as a whistle. They are the true heirs of Swann, not chuckmasters like Murali, Ajmal, Harbhajan, Saqlain etc. As such off spin isn't as rewarding, these 2 guys have been successful without doosra !!!

[cowboysfan]

11 hours ago, Gollum said:

He outbowled Lyon last time in Australia in the 3 tests he played, that too when we were under the pump all the time.

Lyon is a completely different bowler now, I am not even sure Ashwin will play in Australia if he has a poor time of it in SA and England.

[Muloghonto]

19 hours ago, Malcolm Merlyn said:

Lindwall and Miller both were as good as Lillee then there was Alan Davidson.

The greatest fast bowler of 50s was Fred Trueman.

Lindwall was fast medium but Miller was genuine fast apparently. But yes, greatest fast bowler of the 50s is Trueman. One of the best express bowlers the world has ever seen.

[cricketpitch]

The biggest thing is that we need to lower the expectation on the spinner in countries outside Asia. We cannot compare Ashwin to Swann or Lyon, why? because they bowl in those conditions day in and day out. They play their first class cricket on those pitches. The reason Lyon struggled in the subcontinent when he first visited as it is hard for the spinner to determine what length to bowl. But again it is easier for Swann and Lyon to adjust to subcontinent pitches as once they adjust their length the pitch has lots of help for them to take loads of wickets. People clearly forget the situation in the 2014/15 Australia tour. Ashwin bowled brilliantly and poor selection left him out of the first test in Adelaide which was helping spinners from day one. India decided to play Karn Sharma instead who got pasted on a pitch Lyon grabbed 12. Ashwin was brought into the team from the second test onwards where he outbowled Lyon in spite of Indian pacers going for 4.5 runs an over and leaking runs from the other end.

 

In England the first test was a flat and slow wicket and India played Jadeja and continued with Jadeja until the third test and brought Ashwin for the fourth and fifth. Both these games India were bowled out under 170 and were chasing the game. Ashwin bowled well and ended up with an average of 33 in spite of those wickets not being conducive to his spin. South Africa is only bad performance of Ravi Ashwin in tests and that too was only one test. He did not play in NZ.

 

The Indian pace bowler need to step up for our spinners to have good figures. If you see in India Umesh/Shami/Ishant end up with 2-50, 3/60, 2/30 et all because the Indian spinners keep the pressure on from the other end and take wickets. Indian pace bowlers need to return the favours when they travel outside Asia. The spinners will mostly get one pitch in the entire series which might be suitable to them and they will take advantage of it but on other tracks the pacers should do the job so that the spinners can end with 2/50 or 3/60 sort of figures. In Australia our pacers never gave that chance to Ashwin as they were busy leaking runs and Ashwin was doing the containing job for Kohli.

[Vijy]

On 11/27/2017 at 8:13 PM, Muloghonto said:

Agreed.

Besides, the 'home track bully' is an overrated concept when it comes to spinners, particularly Asian spinners. 
There is precisely only ONE great spinner, who has great stats outside of the Indian subcontinent, without having a good pace attack to make early inroads: Muttiah Muralitharan.

This applies to English as well as Aussie bowlers, where in the era of rolled & covered pitches ( i.e., early 1950s onwards), there has been exactly ZERO successful English, West Indian or Australian spinner, who's succeeded but did not have a great pace attack to make early inroads consistently.

You can also see this in the stats differential for someone like Saqlain Mushtaq vs someone like Kumble. Saqlain has far better figures in England, Australia, South Africa, etc. Why ? because he had Wasim-Waqar to blow big holes in the opposition on those pitches. 

It makes a HUGE difference, whether the spinner is usually coming on at 40/3 or 50/1. 

 

Even Murali did very poorly in Australia. It's a harsh land for offspinners in general, unless one is a Chuckmal (or perhaps Chucklain). I agree HTB is an overrated term. A lot of the pacers are HTBs too, esp. the eng seamers of the 90s and 2000s.

[Gollum]

11 hours ago, Vijy said:

Even Murali did very poorly in Australia. It's a harsh land for offspinners in general, unless one is a Chuckmal (or perhaps Chucklain). I agree HTB is an overrated term. A lot of the pacers are HTBs too, esp. the eng seamers of the 90s and 2000s.

Chucklain has been decent, Kumble like in Australia while Chuckmal averages 111+ there !!!!

Edited November 30, 2017 by Gollum