Ravichandran Ashwin took the final wicket of the Australia innings as he cleaned up Josh Hazlewood with a delivery that came straight on and Hazlewood misjudged the length and line to be bowled for 10. This was Ravichandran Ashwin’s second wicket in the innings as Australia were bowled out for 200, giving India a victory target of 70 runs to win. It was yet another clinical performance by Ajinkya Rahane’s India cricket team as they closed in on levelling the four-Test series 1-1. However, when Ravichandran Ashwin took the wicket of Josh Hazlewood, he created a new world record which was previously held by Muttiah Muralitharan, the leading wicket-taker in Tests.
The wicket of Josh Hazlewood, a left-handed batsman, was the 192nd instance of Ravichandran Ashwin dismissing a left-hander in Test cricket. His mark of 192 is now a world record and he is now officially the bowler who has dismissed the most left-handers in Test cricket. Before this, Muttiah Muraltharan had dismissed 191 left-handers out of his 800 wickets in Tests. What is even more amazing is that out of Ravichandran Ashwin’s 375 wickets, more than half are left-handers. 51.2 percent of Ravichandran Ashwin’s dismissals are left-handers.
Left-hander’s nightmare
When one looks at his batsmen dismissal summary, the picture emerges there. Ravichandran Ashwin has dismissed Alastair Cook, a left-hander nine times. He has also dismissed David Warner nine times. Ben Stokes has been his victim seven times while former Australia opener Ed Cowan was also dismissed seven times by Ravichandran Ashwin. In fact, his first six major victims are all left-handers. West Indies’ Darren Bravo and South Africa’s Dean Elgar have fallen prey to him six times. Mitchell Starc, Morne Morkel, Kieran Powell, James Anderson, Shaun Marsh, Dimuth Karunaratne, Matthew Wade, Rangana Herath and Lahiru Thirimanne are the other major left-handers whom Ravichandran Ashwin has dismissed more than five times.
Moeen Ali, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Tom Latham and former Sri Lanka legend Kumar Sangakkara have all fallen to Ravichandran Ashwin four times. When Josh Hazlewood was dismissed today on 10, this was the third time he had fallen to Ravichandran Ashwin.
Indeed, Ravichandran Ashwin is every left-hander’s nightmare and this has put India on course for a series levelling win after the debacle of Adelaide.
