After losing the toss for the fourth Test, when Virat Kohli spoke of the changes in the team, everyone was left baffled. Ishant Sharma and Shami were both missing due to ‘niggles’, but also missing was Ashwin, yet again. In reply to Michael Atherton’s prodding question over Ashwin’s exclusion, Kohli said “England got four left-handers and we thought it is a good matchup for Jadeja. It fits perfectly for our team; plus the balance he's giving us with the bat.” Kohli’s answer was visibly lacking his usual conviction.
Stubbornness and nothing else
Not for the first time, Kohli had dropped Ashwin from the playing XI in an overseas Test match but he often escaped criticism due to India’s policy of picking four quality pacers. However, with the series on the line and having lost the previous Test badly, ignoring one of the all-time greats of cricket for the fourth consecutive match in a series was always going to invite severe criticism and it did. Former England captain Nasser Hussain while doing commentary for Sky Sports felt the decision to leave out Ashwin was Kohli's 'stubbornness'. Former Australian spinner Shane Warne couldn’t agree more with this line of thinking which perhaps is the sentiment of millions of Indians fans who back Ashwin.
“Stubborn it is a terrific word Nasser used. I think it is exactly that. If you look at those two sides and England have got such a more well-balanced team than India do with that tail. I would have played Ashwin. It is going to turn here, you don't pick a side just for the first innings, it will turn. Plus, he's got five Test hundreds, you're playing a batsman as well as someone who can bowl," said Warne. Hussain who is regarded as one of the most astute thinkers of the game had already advocated for Ashwin’s inclusion in the XI just ahead of the Test. "What India do have is an off-spin bowler ranked No. 2 in the world and a batsman good enough to have made five Test centuries in Ravichandran Ashwin. He should have played at Headingley against England’s five left-handers and he must play at The Oval," Hussain wrote in his column for the Daily Mail.
Trying to justify it at all costs!
Former India batsman Sanjay Manjrekar is no longer as outspoken as his earlier-version and yet he too couldn’t fathom the decision. He beautifully put it in his post-match analysis on Sony Sports Network that sending Jadeja ahead of Ajinkya Rahane and Rishabh Pant was in a way the captain trying to justify his decision saying that the left-arm spinner was good enough as a top-order batter.
Unfair treatment to a great and an ever-improving bowler
Of course, Ashwin who is currently the highest Test wicket-taker in the Indian team with 413 scalps in 79 games will not utter a word on this sensitive issue, but one can be sure of his autobiography being the best-seller whenever he publishes. Only three Indian bowlers have got more wickets than Ashwin and he is only four behind Harbhajan. Over the last couple of years, Ashwin has improved tremendously with 43 wickets in his last 12 Tests abroad (18 of them in Australia in four matches, 15 in England in five matches and 7 from two matches in South Africa)) and yet the captain is not convinced of his ability. Ashwin was a revelation Down Under during Ajinkya Rahane’s captaincy stint last year Although former England captain Michael Vaughan often comes across as someone flirting with exaggeration, this time perhaps he wasn’t off the mark when he termed ‘the non-selection of Ashwin as madness on his Twitter timeline. “has to be greatest NON selection we have ever witnessed across 4 Tests in the UK !!!”, wrote Vaughan.
Flawed arguments
Kohli’s argument of Jadeja being a better bet against left-handers falls flat on historical evidence. Ashwin is the only one with 200 Test victims who have been left-handed batsmen. Sometimes, it does appear like a personal grudge of Kohli against Ashwin as in his very Test match as captain in Adelaide in 2014 Kohli had picked a rookie Karan Sharma ahead of Ashwin! History is replete with stories where a champion has been unfairly dropped. The bitterness lasts far longer as was the case with Shane Warne and former Australian captain Steve Waugh. Warne never forgave Waugh for dropping him in the West Indies in 1999 when he was relatively struggling, and Stuart MacGill was preferred over him. Similarly, VVS Laxman didn’t speak to his coach John Wright and captain Sourav Ganguly for many years after he was bizarrely ignored in favour of Dinesh Mongia for the 2003 ODI World Cup in South Africa. Like Kohli, former India captain Sourav Ganguly too had to go through a difficult phase of choosing one spinner between Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh. Ganguly often preferred Bhajji over Kumble in overseas matches but Kumble never sulked and fought his way back and settled all the arguments of being effective on India’s tour of Australia in 2004. Kumble eventually managed to play more matches overseas (12) than Harbhajan.
Who is the facilitator in this team?
Ganguly was comforted by the seniors like Rahul Dravid and Laxman besides coach Wright who could play the role of facilitator in conveying the logic behind unwanted exclusions of a legend like Kumble from the XI. Former England captain Mike Brearley in his seminal book “The Art of Captaincy” had written about the importance of a facilitator in a team-environment. “A leader is there to lead. But this doesn’t not mean being a martinet. Equally important, as we have seen, is the role of facilitator for the individual and the group. The good captain enables talents to flower.” Unfortunately, Team India head coach Ravi Shastri hasn’t done or said anything publicly which could reassure Ashwin. If India loses the Oval Test and the series, the Ashwin decision is going to haunt the legacy of Kohli forever.
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