Ashwin or Jadeja: Who will play the WTC final?


image-lfgqbvulIndian players shaking hands at Indore (AP Photo)

The year 2023 is a blockbuster year for all those old-fashioned cricket lovers who have grown up spending their whole days just glued to their TVs watching Test and ODI cricket. Yes, it is a year when we will have the second World Test Championship final and few months later, a 50-over World Cup, which was just years ago, the biggest event in the cricketing calendar. We won't blame you, if you still feel the same.

Anyways, India have made it to the final of the World Test Championship again and would be heading to London to face the Aussies at the famous Kennington Oval. A lot of discussions and debates have started regarding the composition of the Indian team for that final and once again, one of the biggest question is, will India play two spinners? If they don't, who will be the lone spinner? Ravindra Jadeja or Ravichandran Ashwin?

Of course, team combination depends on lot of factors but the question here is, why Ravichandran Ashwin, the second-fastest bowler to take 450 wickets still does not have a permanent place in the playing XI when India travels to SENA  (South Africa, England, New Zealand, Australia) countries? 


Let's look at the two major factors that could possibly answer the above question?

The emergence of Ravindra Jadeja, the genuine all-conditions all-rounder

Ravindra Jadeja has taken his game to the next level over the course of last few years by making his bat talk in all conditions along with his accurate bowling and gun fielding.  The last overseas Test India played which was also in England at Birmingham, Jadeja stroked a fantastic century when India was under the pump. This new evolved version of  Jadeja where he contributes regularly with the bat, provides him an edge in that race for a lone spinner spot.


He has scored 594 runs in 11 Test matches in England with an average of 29.70 which includes three fifties and one century while with the ball, he has picked 23 wickets making a good case for himself for that lone-spinner spot providing control to his captain in conditions were pacers are expected to do the bulk of the work.

Ravichandran Ashwin's early failures in overseas conditions and the perception

Ravichandran Ashwin has been one of the most successful bowler in world cricket in last decade or so. The man has picked truckloads of wickets and is known for his sharp cricketing mind and astute personality. 

However, as it often happens in life, a perception created at the start of your professional career, stays with you no matter how you evolve yourself later in life. This exactly seems to be happening with Ashwin now. 

The last time he played a Test in England was in Southampton during the final of the World Test Championship and he was no doubt looking as India's best bowler in the second innings and managed to pick four wickets in that Test. In the Australian series before that World Test Championship, Ashwin picked 5 wickets each in Adelaide and Melbourne before he got injured in Sydney where he played a match-saving knock in the final innings.


So, what exactly he has done wrong to not be considered as a frontline spinner in Indian Test squad? The answer lies in his past. In the two Test matches he played in 2014 in England, his first tour to UK, Ashwin managed only three wickets and looked pretty ineffective on other overseas tours as well. At the same time, India started dishing out rank-turners at home and the perception started growing that Ashwin is a bowler who needs the wicket to help him to deliver results.

However, the man has evolved considerably over the course of his career as his recent performances suggest. After that disastrous tour of England in 2014, Ashwin played his next Test match in 2018 in England and picked 7 wickets at Birmingham. Recently, he also showed his class on a pretty flat deck at Ahmedabad in the final Test of the Border Gavaskar Trophy by picking six wickets in the first innings, when everyone else struggled. The man also has five centuries to his name and has all the ability to bat in difficult conditions something which he has shown time and again in his career.

So once again, we arrive at our big question. Who should India play as a lone spinner? Or given the all-round quality of the two players, Can India play both of them in the playing XI? If there is one ground in UK, where a team can afford to play two spinners, it is Oval. 

Here is what Steve Smith said after the final Border Gavaskar Trophy Test at Ahmedabad about the conditions that both teams can expect in Oval

"The Oval, the wicket there can take spin at times particularly as the game wears on. So, it could be interesting in terms of what sort of wicket we get."

So, if the wicket does offer some turn and the overhead conditions are not too gloomy as they were during the last World Test Championship final, India can possibly play both Jadeja and Ashwin given that both provide decent batting option as well. However, if India does go with only one spinner, one of them would consider himself as pretty unlucky as both are world-class players and would love to be part of a spectacle like World Test Championship final.

All our questions will be answered on 7th of June, 2023. Until then, let's keep the excitement going and our cricketing mind growing.