Indian off-spinner R Ashwin on Sunday equalled former Sri Lanka bowler Muttiah Muralitharan’s world record of being the fastest to 350 Test wickets. The off-spinner attained the record after he picked up a wicket in the second over of the final day of the first Test between India and South Africa in Visakhapatnam. Ashwin bowled a low, turning one outside off stump which was chopped on to the stumps by the Proteas batsman Theunis de Bruyn.
Ashwin, who had 349 wickets to his name, needed one more wicket going into the final day of the first Test against South Africa in Visakhapatnam to equal Murali’s world record. Murali had achieved the milestone in his 66th Test match back in 2001 against Bangladesh. Ashwin too reached the milestone in his 66th appearance in the purest format of the game.
To put his Ashwin’s performance into perspective, he defeated Anil Kumble as India’s fastest to 350 Test scalps by 11 Tests. Kumble had taken 77 Tests to reach to that milestone.
The 33-year-old, who has been playing only one format for India since July 2017, last played the Adelaide Test from December 6 to 10, the first of the four on the tour of Australia.
To his disappointment, Ashwin did not feature in the playing eleven in the following Test series against the West Indies in August-September when India only played one spinner in Ravindra Jadeja. “To stay away from cricket itself was very tough for me. In order to substitute, I played whatever games I got. I tried and made opportunity for myself to go and play some county cricket (for Nottinghamshire). I tried and played the TNPL as much as I could, played some league cricket in Chennai,” he said.
“It was very important to tick those numbers off because that is essentially where I came from. Going back and playing there is probably the best thing that could have happened,” said Ashwin, who when asked about time away from national duty.
