Ravichandran Ashwin posesses the best strike rate among spinners in last 100 years

Ravichandran Ashwin has achieved a colossal amount of success as a Test cricketer in a very short span of time. Taking fifers and grabbing Man of the Series awards has become a sort of habit for the ace offie. The recently concluded India-New Zealand Test series was yet another example of his spin bowling prowess. In just three matches, he snapped 27 wickets and finished as the single most dominating player from both the sides.

There no doubt over the fact that Ashwin is at the moment invincible, especially in the sub-continental conditions. He is at the peak of his career. He already has 20 five wicket hauls and 7 Man of the Series awards to his short yet outstanding career which spans only 39 Tests. These are astonishing numbers by any standards.

When New Zealand’s wrecker in-chief’s bowling figures are stacked against the spinners who have operated in the last 100 years and taken more than 100 wickets, the 30-year-old engineer leads the pack. Ashwin’s strike rate of 49.4 is the best for any spinner who has more than 100 wickets in the last 100 years.

A bowler’s strike-rate is the average number of balls bowled between two wickets. Simply put, Ashwin gets a player out after every 50 (49.4) balls that he sends down the pitch.

Only Sri Lanka’s Rangana Herath and Australia’s Nathan Lyon are the active players who feature in the Top 10. The next Indian on the list is BS Chandrasekhar at the 13th spot followed by Anil Kumble. Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan and Australia’s Shane Warne, considered the greatest spinners to have ever played the game, take fifth, and sixth spot.

If the 100-year limit is set aside, Ashwin is still quite the player. In the all-time list, he is third, behind two English bowlers – Johnny Briggs, Colin Blythe – who played cricket in the primitive years before 1910.