Indian legend Sunil Gavaskar reckons Ravichandran Ashwin is capable of going past Anil Kumble’s record of 619 wickets.
Ashwin recently went past Kapil Dev’s record of 434 wickets and also leapfrogged Dale Steyn’s tally of 439 wickets. The off-spinner has been a consistent performer for the Indian team over the years.
The veteran spinner has taken 442 wickets in 86 Test matches at an average of 24.13. Ashwin is now the eighth-highest wicket-taker in Test cricket and he has had a great career. However, in order to overtake Anil Kumble’s landmark of 619 wickets, Ashwin still needs 178 more wickets.
The Tamil Nadu spinner is currently 35 years old and his career has been plagued with injuries. However, Ashwin has all the experience under his belt and he has always done a fine job for the team. The off-spinner also scalped 12 wickets in two Test matches against Sri Lanka in the recently concluded series and finished as the highest wicket-taker in the series.
“It’s still a fair distance to go, we are talking about another 160 wickets. But he is capable of doing that because he just keeps getting better. He doesn’t rest on his laurels,” Gavaskar told Star Sports.
On the other hand, the Little Master also heaped praise on Jasprit Bumrah, who took eight wickets in the second Test match at Bengaluru against Sri Lanka. Gavaskar added that Bumrah is always looking to add more arrows is his quiver.
“Jasprit Bumrah, who got into Test cricket after Ashwin, is exactly like Ashwin in the sense that he is always looking to add to his repertoire. That is what Ashwin does. At a time a year and year-and-half-ago, Ashwin was tyring leg-spin because you can as variety ball bowl that, especially if you have got 500 runs in the bank,” Gavaskar said.
“He is not afraid to experiment. Yes, he might hit, that’s the nature of the game. But the fact that he is doing something different and wanting to create doubts in the batter’s mind. He and Bumrah are so similar in that aspect, aggressive bowlers, wanting to get wickets and not just happy with getting those easy wickets. They want to make sure they have got the batters.”
Ravichandran Ashwin will be now seen playing for Rajasthan Royals in the IPL whereas Jasprit Bumrah will turn up for Mumbai Indians.
