India's premier off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has added yet another feather in his illustrious cap as he has become the 14th Indian to play 100 Tests or more.
Ashwin has now become only the third Indian spinner in history to play a minimum of 100 Test matches after Anil Kumble (132) and Harbhajan Singh (103).
Ashwin's historic achievement earned him plenty of praise from the former Australia captain Ricky Ponting. Ponting extolled Ashwin for his ability to keep reinventing himself and his unending willingness to "evolve as a bowler".
"He's a master of spin in any conditions. He's been an incredible cricketer, no doubt about it," Ponting said on the latest episode of the ICC Review.
"I had a chance to coach him for a couple of years at Delhi and loved working with him. He's got a lot of theories and philosophies on the game, which I really like. He's always done things a little bit differently and done things his own way. But he just continued to evolve as a bowler.
"That's the thing that I loved about him when I was coaching him, he’d stand at the end of his mark and he'd be working on something different, a little tweak to his action or a change of grip or a different delivery. He's never been one that was going to die wondering about trying to find ways to get better," he added.
Meanwhile, the ongoing five-match Test series against England has also helped Ashwin find a place among bowlers with more than 500 Test scalps to their name. Ashwin entered the elite list with the wicket of Zak Crawley in the 3rd Test at the Niranjan Shah Stadium in Rajkot.
Ashwin alongside Nathan Lyon (527 wickets), Kumble (619 wickets), Shane Warne (708 wickets) and Muttiah Muralidaran (800 wickets) is only the fifth spinner to have claimed more than 500 Test wickets.
