Sanjay Manjrekar and Ashwin Picture Credit: Twitter
Team India’s ace spinner Ravichandran Aswin has been a key factor in India’s red-ball cricket over the last few years. Having played 78 Tests, Ashwin has picked 409 wickets for India and has 30-five wicket hauls to his name. However, former Indian cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar has made a big statement on Ashwin's credentials as an all-time great. He said that he has a few problems when people call the off-spinner ‘one of the all-time greats of the game. "One basic problem I have with Ashwin is that when you look at SENA (South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia) a country, Ashwin doesn’t have a single five-wicket haul there," Manjrekar highlighted.
Manjrekar feels that Jadeja has matched Ashwin in the last few years
The Indian commentator feels that India’s top all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja has matched the level of Ashwin in the last few years. “In the last four years, Jadeja has matched him with wicket-taking abilities,” Manjrekar added.
He further threw light on Axar Patel’s performance in the recent England series, given that he has taken similar number of wickets as Ashwin on the same pitches. “Then, interestingly, in the last series against England, Axar Patel got more wickets than Ashwin on similar pitches. So that is my problem with accepting Ashwin as a real all-time great,” he added.
The debutant took 27 wickets in his maiden Test series, playing 3 games against England, while Ashwin played all four and emerged the highest wicket-taker in the series with 32 wickets.
Ashwin is currently world No.2 in the ICC Test rankings for bowlers. He is only nine wickets away from surpassing Harbhajan Singh, who is India's third-highest wicket-taker of all times.