R Ashwin retired from international cricket after the Brisbane Test match of 2024/25. Aditya Iyer’s tribute originally appeared in the 2025 edition of the Wisden Almanack.
Given the culture of reverence in Indian cricket, R Ashwin could have easily arranged a farewell Test series on home turf, on those turning wickets he so dominated over a decade. Instead, midway through the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, and during the bleak and rainy dregs of a Brisbane Test in which he didn’t even take part, he called it a day. At 38, he was perhaps fed up of not pinning down the role of India’s lone spinner in countries and conditions that favour fast bowling.
Even so, the suddenness of the decision astonished everyone, including team-mates. Virat Kohli’s shocked look in the Gabba dressing-room reflected a nation’s: he hugged Ashwin, who then shrugged, and wiped away a tear. And that was that. An extraordinary Test career spanning 13 years, from New Delhi in November 2011 to Adelaide in December 2024, had screeched to a halt at 537 wickets, 82 shy of Anil Kumble’s Indian record.
Yet, more than Kumble, Ashwin was possibly his country’s greatest match-winning bowler. Having replaced a fading Harbhajan Singh as the primary spinner, he took 22 wickets in his debut series of three Tests against West Indies, and even struck a hundred, at Mumbai. Those performances won him the first of 11 series awards, the joint-highest in Test history with Muttiah Muralidaran (though from only 44 series to Murali’s 61). It wrapped up a phenomenal year, in which he had played a small but crucial role in India’s first one-day World Cup win since 1983.
Though his white-ball career didn’t blossom in the same way, Ashwin’s Test prowess grew exponentially. Equally adept with new ball or old, he was the fastest to 300 Test wickets, and second-fastest to 400 and 500, getting there in February 2024 against England at Rajkot. He enjoyed playing the English, becoming the only man since Garry Sobers at Headingley in 1966 to score a hundred and take a five-for in the same Test against them, on his home ground at Chennai in 2020/21.
What made Ashwin a true great was his student-like obsession with the art of bowling, and his refusal to focus on his stock ball. His laboratory of a brain often produced experiments: the sodduku or carrom ball brought more success than a finger-spun leg-break, but he enjoyed the cunning of each variation all the same. This contrarian streak made him a fan favourite, and he was unafraid to speak out about the game’s traditions. He zealously defended mankading Jos Buttler in the IPL, and was never shy of weighing in on India’s oft-criticised pitches. It was only natural that his voice should find a calling with a popular channel on YouTube.
Despite not being the greatest athlete India have ever fielded, Ashwin wasn’t injury-prone, and never missed a home Test: of his 65, which brought 383 wickets at 21, they won 50 and lost only nine, thanks largely to his prolific partnership with left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja. And despite being part of an unexpected 3–0 defeat by New Zealand, Ashwin experienced one last high, against Bangladesh in his Chepauk backyard. His sixth Test hundred lifted India from bother, before his 37th five-for won the game. A final match award was collected with his family on the field, though he deserved even better.
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