Champions have a way of rubbing their detractors’ noses in the dust, and ace Indian offspinner Ravichandran Ashwin did just that in the first Test against West Indies at Roseau, Dominica. Let us concede that the West Indies are not the team they were a few decades ago. Let us also accept that conditions favoured slow bowlers. There were several on show, from either side, and yet Ashwin was able to pick up 12 of the 20 his side claimed, the next best effort yielding less than half that number. In the process, he rebutted with his guile every argument that has been used to drop him from the Test side, including most recently from the final of the World Test Championship which India lost. What are these arguments? That in overseas conditions, the team’s balance requires three or four pacers and one spinner, and that because of his superior batting abilities Ravindra Jadeja claims the slow bowler’s spot. Without questioning Jadeja’s remarkable skills, it must be conceded that he is a fair-weather bowler who can at best contain a batting line-up on a pace-friendly wicket. He will be the first to concede that he does not possess the armoury of skills that the senior spinner does.

The premise that three or four pacers are needed overseas is equally questionable. For Ashwin to make way for a pacer of the calibre of Umesh Yadav or Shardul Thakur is laughable, especially when neither has the batting skills of either Jadeja or even the Chennai off-spinner. Only Jasprit Bumrah and sometimes Mohammed Shami have shown the skill to run through a batting line-up overseas, and the former has been unavailable because of injury. In these circumstances, benching Ashwin in pursuit of an undefined “team balance” as India did recently at the Oval makes little sense. While in the early stages of his career, his bowling record was skewed towards performances at home, Ashwin has in recent times honed his skills to become a potent force overseas. His performances, with ball and bat, on the tour of Australia in 2020-21 were outstanding, and in the first World Test Championship final, he was the best slow bowler on show with four wickets from 25 overs. And now, at Roseau, he has shown just how exceptional he is. In short, Ashwin must be a first-choice bowler for India in Test matches, whether at home or overseas, and must continue to be so until his form deserts him. Ashwin has been the first in getting to 300 and 350 Test wickets, and second in getting to 450 wickets and in the number of Player of Series awards won. But he has seldom been the first or second player to be picked for the Indian Test team. The world’s best slow bowler deserves better