Ravichandran Ashwin

Ravichandran Ashwin (born 17 September 1986) is an Indian international cricketer.

He is a right-arm off spin bowler and a lower order batter.

Ashwin was born on 17 September 1986 in Madras, Tamil Nadu, to Ravichandran and Chitra.

His father, Ravichandran, played cricket at club level as a fast bowler.

Ashwin did his schooling at Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan and St. Bede's Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School.

He started playing cricket at the age of nine for YMCA and was coached by Chandrasekar Rao during the early part of his career.

He represented the Indian under-17 team as an opening batter.

Later, he took up medium pace bowling before switching to off spin.

He graduated with a BTech in Information Technology from SSN college of engineering, Chennai.

Ashwin resides in West Mambalam, Chennai.

He made his first-class debut for Tamil Nadu in December 2006 and captained the team the following season.

He played for the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the 2010 Indian Premier League, where his economical bowling led to his maiden international call-up in the limited-overs formats in June 2010.

He was the leading wicket-taker and player of the tournament of the 2010 Champions League Twenty20, which was won by CSK.

On the back of his impressive performance in the 2010 Indian Premier League, Ashwin was selected for the Indian squad that toured Zimbabwe for a tri-series in May 2010.

He made his ODI debut against Sri Lanka on 5 June 2010, scoring a 32–ball 38 and taking 2/50 in that match, which India lost.

His T20I debut came a week later, against Zimbabwe at Harare where he took 1/22 in four overs in an Indian win.

Ashwin was part of the squad for the 2010 Asia Cup, which India won.

He was also part of the tri-series against New Zealand and Sri Lanka, but did not get a game, with Pragyan Ojha and Ravindra Jadeja being preferred.

In October 2010, Ashwin was selected to play in the three-match home ODI series against Australia, in which he took 1/34 in nine overs in an Indian victory in the only match he played.

Ashwin played in all five matches of the home series against New Zealand in November–December 2010 in which India completed a 5–0 whitewash with Ashwin ending up as the leading wicket-taker with 11 wickets at an average of 21.90.

At the conclusion of the series, then Indian captain Gautam Gambhir called him "the find" of the series and hailed his bowling during the powerplay overs.

Despite being in the squad, Ashwin did not make it to the playing eleven in any of the five ODIs on the South African tour in 2010, with Harbhajan Singh preferred.

Widely regarded as one of the most prolific off spinners of all time, he represents the Indian cricket team and was part of the Indian team that won the 2011 Cricket World Cup and the 2013 Champions Trophy.

He plays for Tamil Nadu and South Zone in domestic cricket and for Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Ashwin has 500 wickets in Tests and is the fastest bowler to reach 300 wickets in terms of number of innings.

He has won ten Man of the Series awards in Tests, which is the highest by an Indian cricketer and the second highest overall.

As an all-rounder in Test cricket, he bats down the order, has scored five Test centuries and is one of the only three players to have scored 3000 runs and taken 500 wickets in Tests.

As of February 2024, Ashwin is the second highest-ranked bowler in the ICC men's player rankings and the highest rated Indian bowler ever in Tests.

Ashwin started as an opening batsman but dropped down the order due to limited success and turned into an off-break bowler.

In 2011, he made his Test debut against West Indies and became the seventh Indian bowler to take a five-wicket haul on debut.

Ashwin had greater success with the turning tracks in the Indian subcontinent, including taking 29 wickets in a series against Australia, the most by any Indian bowler in a four-match Test series.

He has been named five times to the ICC Men's Test Team of the Year and was named in the ICC Men's Test Team of the Decade 2011–20.

He married his childhood friend, Prithi Narayanan, on 13 November 2011.

They have two daughters.

Ashwin was part of the 15-member 2011 Cricket World Cup squad, with Harbhajan and Piyush Chawla being the other two specialist spinners in the squad.

Ashwin played only two matches in World cup, which India won, defeating Sri Lanka in the finals.

Ashwin played the fourth and fifth matches of India's tour of West Indies in June–July 2011, picking up just one wicket.

He also won the 2014 Champions League Twenty20 and two IPL titles (2010, 2011) with CSK.

In the 2015–16 season, Ashwin took 48 wickets and scored 336 runs in eight Test matches, along with 27 wickets in 19 T20Is, enabling him to win the ICC Cricketer of the Year and ICC Men's Test Cricketer of the Year awards for 2016.

In 2015, he was awarded the Arjuna award by the Government of India.