Leaving out Ashwin..
..and why it's ok.
The Ashwin Illusion
Yesterday I published a piece debunking the belief that R. Ashwin is being kept out of the Indian XI by Ravindra Jadeja, and going on to talk about why leaving out Ashwin makes cricketing sense in ‘typically English’ conditions.
Since one of the intentions of this newsletter is to make it easier for people to find my work, I’m linking that article here, so it lives in your inbox rather than a hard-to-find web page. This is what I wish my favourite authors would do (you have no idea how hard it sometimes is to find an article. I once trawled through the Hindustan Times pages looking for a piece Sharda Ugra had done, only to later realise it was not on the Hindustan Times but Economic Times site. Sharda, if you’re reading this, let’s talk about a newsletters :)).
What do you think about getting my articles that have been published elsewhere on this newsletter? Or would you prefer only newsletter exclusive content here? Let me know by commenting or replying to this email.
All in all, writing this piece provided an excellent Twitter timeline cleanse. There were so many responses, some considered, some not so much, that my ‘mute’ button got quite a workout. I put out a poll asking people who should Ashwin play in place of, and despite not being in the options, so many people said Ajinkya Rahane. So their solution to our already weak middle order was to further weaken our middle order?
(Such are the riches of India’s bowling department right now, and such is the dissonace on social media, that this poll, taken end of Day 3, said the eventual POTM Shardul Thakur should have been replaced. Yes, I know Rohit Sharma won POTM, but Shardul did in my book. And this is my book. :))
But while you’re here, let me give you a bit of the backstory into why I wrote this piece. It was almost a counter argument to this piece on NDTV, by a writer I admire, Mukul Kesavan.
Personally, I thought that Kesavan made a lot of valid cricketing arguments for Ashwin’s inclusion. But I found suggestions that Ashwin was left out because of ‘he isn’t ‘one of the lads’ insubstantial. I’ve played in plenty of teams where there are severe personal differences between players. But even in gully competitions, the personal is put aside in order to win, and this is elite cricket we are talking about.
So I decided to keep the focus on the cricket and break down, to the best of my understanding, the game-related reasons behind Ashwin’s exclusion. And it comes down to the difference between a three and four-man seam attack. That brace from Bumrah that changed the game? Freshness played a part in that, however small, however intangible, and he was fresh because India had three other seamers who did their jobs.
Like I’ve been saying for the past couple of days on Twitter, there are valid reasons to play and not play Ashwin, and just because India are 2-1 up doesn’t mean that Ashwin’s exclusion is validated. Similarly, if India had been 2-1 down, a four-paceman strategy would not have been invalid.
And while on the sibject of backstories, here’s a BTS photos of my writing this column.
It’s in a hospital room, with a chair and suitcase as the table for my laptop, as I was giving company to a relative who’s just had surgery. Like I keep telling my Multimedia Sports Journalism batch, you should have your favourite corner to write, and create a consistent routine, but don’t depend on it. You should be ready and able to write in the weirdest places.