Veteran Indian spinner R Ashwin fired on all cylinders in his comeback game in the first Test against the West Indies as he rattled the Windies' batters with his accuracy, guile and just sheer brilliance on Wednesday, July 12. Ashwin, who was playing his first match since the IPL, was on the money from the outset and took the first two wickets including West Indies skipper Kraigg Brathwaite.
The West Indies batters continued to lose wickets in clumps before Jason Holder and debutant Alick Athanaze strung a partnership together for the 6th wicket of 38 runs. However, once it was broken by Mohammed Siraj, it went downhill for the West Indies once again. R Ashwin was the wrecker-in-chief once again as he dismissed Alzarri Joseph and set Athanaze in consecutive overs to leave West Indies reeling.
With the wicket of Joseph, Ashwin became only the third Indian bowler to achieve 700 wickets in international cricket after legendary spinner Anil Kumble and former India off-spinner Harbhajan Singh. Ashwin needed three wickets to achieve the feat and he didn't take much time to add one more wicket to his tally.
Indian bowlers to take most wickets in international cricket
956 - Anil Kumble
711 - Harbhajan Singh
701* - R Ashwin
687 - Kapil Dev
610 - Zaheer Khan
Ashwin already has four wickets to his name and will be eager to get one more to get to his 33rd five-wicket haul in Test cricket. Ashwin also went past Kumble in having the most bowled dismissals (95) for an Indian bowler after he got Tagenarine Chanderpaul out earlier.
West Indies, on the other hand, are clearly struggling against the quality of Indian bowlers. They did show some fight in the middle-order owing to debutant Athanaze's gritty 47-run knock but once the partnership between him and Holder broke, it was a matter of time. West Indies are currently 138/8 and will hope to add a few more to give respectability to the total before the Indians come out to bat.
