5 Occasions when Ravi Ashwin spun a web around the batsmen in Tests

3. 7/83 vs West Indies, 2016

In July 2016, the West Indian batsmen were all at sea as they succumbed to another masterful display of spin bowling by India’s talisman. On a track that was starting to deteriorate and beginning to help the spinners, Ravi Ashwin took full advantage and sliced through the West Indian batting line up.

The first of his scalps was Rajendra Chandrika. To a ball that was tossed up, Chandrika tried to flick it through mid wicket, but the ball took the inside edge and Saha pouched the offering. Blackwood was the next man to depart. Ashwin had a packed leg side field, with a short leg, a leg slip and a short mid wicket in place for Blackwood. To a ball that had a bit of loop and pitched on middle stump, the right hander tried to force the ball into the leg side, but hit it in the air in an uppish manner, and skipper Virat Kohli completed an incredible catch, diving to his left.

Ashwin also accounted for the wickets of Marlon Samuels and Roston Chase to leave the West Indies in doldrums. The Indian spinner’s fifth wicket was a classic that will be savoured. To a ball that was tossed up, Jason Holder went for the big expansive drive, but the ball spun in sharply and the stumps were dislodged. Ashwin had beaten Holder in the air. It was a dismissal that any off spinner would be proud of. Ashwin also accounted for Devendra Bishoo and Shannon Gabriel to finish with a seven wicket haul.