'What does he have to do to play?' - Twitter asks after India continue to bench Ravi Ashwin against England

6/27 – These were the figures for India’s premier off-spinner Ravi Ashwin when he played for Surrey in July before the Test series against England. He had bagged seven wickets in total in the only County Championship game he played and the venue was The Oval in London. And this is where the fourth Test between India and England is being played currently.

Historically, the venue also has the best numbers for the spinners compared to the other stadiums in England and clearly, it was a given that India will finally include Ashwin in the playing XI. However, that wasn’t to be. The skipper Virat Kohli has backed his four seamers template and stuck to it in the fourth Test as well with the conditions at least on Day 1, conducive for the pace bowlers.

But the surface at The Oval is known to break up more as the game progresses bringing the spinners into the game. England have four left-handers in their line-up and certainly Ravi Ashwin would’ve been more than handy with his off-spins. Rather many believe he should’ve played all the three Test matches before as well given that he was the best bowler for India in the WTC Final against New Zealand.

Kohli’s Indian team thinks in a different way?

But Virat Kohli’s Indian team thinks in a different way it seems. Ravindra Jadeja has been favoured largely for his batting abilities at number seven while he has picked only two wickets in five innings. The Indian captain made it clear it was the team combination they have preferred but to keep a man with 413 Test wickets to his name out for four consecutive Test matches is a huge call.

Certainly, the fans and the cricket experts aren’t happy and more so when Ravi Ashwin’s numbers in the West Indies and SENA countries have improved significantly since 2018. He has accounted for 43 wickets in 12 Tests at an average of 28.23 and the economy of 2.47 is also much better compared to his previous numbers which were a lot worse.

For the fourth Test, India made two changes bringing in Umesh Yadav and Shardul Thakur for Ishant Sharma and Mohammed Shami who have niggles. England also made a couple of changes including Ollie Pope and Chris Woakes for the first time in the series at the expense of Jos Buttler and Sam Curran.

Here’s how Twitter reacted to Ashwin’s non inclusion: