Ravichandran Ashwin has played many vital roles in most of India’s Test victories since his debut. Being the major checkpoint for most of the opposition batsmen in Indian conditions, Ashwin has already broken many Test cricket records. He is now the joint-fastest to 350 wickets in Test cricket along with the legendary Sri Lankan bowler Muttiah Muralitharan.
Ashwin, who now stands at the 4th position in the leading wicket-takers for India in Tests is only behind Anil Kumble (619), Kapil Dev (434) and Harbhajan Singh (417). In one of our Cricket Prediction series, we have analyzed whether Ashwin can break Kumble’s numbers in the longest format.
Coming back to our topic, we are not here to analyze Ashwin’s overall numbers. Instead, let’s have a look into the unique record Ashwin achieved in India’s famous Border-Gavaskar series win in 2013.
Let’s dive into it without wasting much time.
The famous Australian whitewash!
When team Australia traveled India in 2013 for a Test series, it was India who did a complete sweep of 4-0 against the team, who had dominated the test cricket in the previous generation. It was Australia’s first whitewash in a Test series since 1969-70.
It was one of the famous Test series win for India under MS Dhoni’s captaincy. Ravichandran Ashwin, India’s trump card of that series, came up with the Player of the Series performance of 29 wickets.
While doing so, Ashwin surpassed Anil Kumble’s then-record (27) for the most wickets in the four-Test series by an Indian bowler, and became the third Indian off-spinner to pick more than 25 wickets in a Test series.
Ashwin didn’t miss any!
Despite India’s famous clean sweep under MS Dhoni, a rare phenomenon of record was achieved by Ashwin on that day. And what is that?
The Chennai-based off-spinner dismissed every Australian batsmen who batted in that series, at least once. Yes, It was a complete sweep for Ashwin too. He had dismissed all 16 batsmen, who had batted in the four games of that series, at least once.
Of course, the feat was made possible by Australians, who managed to play all 16 members in the squad over the four Test matches, and Ashwin picked them all, at least once. It is definitely a rare fact in Cricket history, as no other bowler had ever done it before and after. And it is not an easy record to equalize too.
Here’s a video story of the 1st Test of that series in Chennai, in which Ashwin picked a double-fiver of 12 wickets.
Thanks for reading!
You can read more of our series of amazing and untold cricket facts here.
