Veteran Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh on Monday stated that Ravichandran Ashwin is in fact the best off-spinner in world cricket right now. Both the spinners for India shared a healthy cricketing rivalry for the only spinner spot in the Indian team until a few years ago.
Speaking to Ashwin on his Instagram live chat show ‘ReminiscewithAsh’, Harbhajan clarified that he has no negative feelings towards Ashwin.
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“A lot of people would say that there is a lot of jealousy between us. But I would want to call out to those detractors and say there is nothing like that,” the 39-year-old said.
Bhajji, as the former Mumbai Indians star is known as, went on to call Ashwin a “legend in the making”.
“Ashwin is the best offie in the world right now. I also rate Nathan Lyon highly,” he said.
“The Aussie (offie) is also up there because he has done extremely well for himself given the fact that he comes from Australia where the pitches hardly aid spinners. But Ashwin is a legend in the making,” he added.
“Going forward, I only want him to stay fit because he is capable of taking a lot more wickets and could finish among the highest wicket-takers in the world,” he further said.
Ashwin has donned the Indian whites 71 times in his career so far and picked up 365 wickets at an average of 25.43. The right-arm bowler has played 111 ODIs so far in which he has picked 150 wickets at an average of 32.91. The 33-year-old also has 52 T20I wickets in 46 matches at an average of 22.94.