A trio of spinners with the ability to win games with the ball or the bat. Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, and Ravichandran Ashwin are as uncommon as they are special, and their collective impact may be unmatched in Indian cricket history.
As if their statistics with the ball, which are obviously their major abilities, weren’t deadly enough (754 wickets at 21.03), their bat statistics are astounding given where they come to bat.
Jadeja has 2,593 runs at a strike rate of 37.03, including three hundreds. Since 2019, he has the eighth-best Test cricket average (49.37 in 31 victories), the second-best for his nation after Rohit Sharma (57.65). I won’t dwell on it, but none of the top 10 bats are as bad as Jadeja. His overall Test cricket average of 49.04 is just a few decimals below Imran Khan’s and surpasses the iconic duo of Lan Botham and Kapil Dev. They were fast bowlers, so of course they worked hard and suffered from fractured bones. Jadeja is still superior to them in terms of influence, though.
Not to be outdone, Ashwin has amassed some impressive hits over the past few of years, including a hundred-turner at Chepauk and a pair of half-centuries in tenacious lower-order comebacks that have become a recurring theme. A hitter with significantly more grace and steel than what a 27.37 average would imply (co-incidentally the same as that of Richard Hadlee), He scored more than Sanjay Manjrekar (4) and Sandeep Patil, but less than MS Dhoni by one hundred, Wasim Jaffer, and Vinoo Mankad, respectively (4). Axar’s career is still in its early stages, but in a short period of time he hasn’t missed a chance to show off his batting prowess (an average of 27.27 in 14 innings for a No.9 is spectular).
Their comfort when batting, their ability to defend on turning courses, and how consistently they contribute are just as important as their hitting statistics. In Nagpur, for example, India’s lead would not have exceeded 100 if you ignore Axar and Jadeja’s half-centuries.
The gradeur of India’s famed spin quartet, composed of Bishan Singh Bedi, Erapalli Prasanna, Srinivas Venkataraghavan, and Bhagwat Chandrashekhar, who shared 853 wickets in 231 Tests, continues to astound the globe. They are responsible for India’s storied reputation as the home of guys with rubber-wrists and elastic legs. But none of them played much baseball. Venkataraghavan had the highest average, 11.68, by far. Not that their batting average would ever matter, but only for context.
No other Indian spinning quartet, trio, or pair has amassed such enduring acclaim and admiration. Even the two spin-pillars of the 1990s and 2000s, Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh, who combined for 1036 Test wickets and three thousands, never attained the same level of awe or respect as Bedi and his team have.
