Australia vs India test match: Steve Smith will be relieved after Ashwin’s shock retirement but it’s cricket’s loss they won’t go to battle again

The Ashwin-Lyon battle for the top spot as the finger spinner is officially over, with the Indian genius retiring after the Gabba Test. No other country suffered more at the hands of his wizardry. But that’s not to say he wasn’t responsible for any number of wickets on Australian soil. Just ask Steve Smith.

Ravichandran Ashwin celebrates taking the wicket of Steve Smith during a test match in 2023.

On his last day as an international cricketer, the man R Ashwin spoke to the longest was Nathan Lyon. His longstanding counterpart. His biggest admirer outside India.

It was before the start of the fifth day’s play at the Gabba. It was Ashwin, with 537 Test wickets to his name, who approached Lyon, with 533 Test wickets, for a pitchside chat. The champion Indian spinner did most of the talking. Lyon mainly stood around with his hands on his hips, listening patiently.

The conversation soon turned towards their trade. Towards the art form that they both managed to master and thrive on so brilliantly for nearly 15 years. They were now gesticulating with their hands and fingers, clearly talking about types of deliveries, ends that they preferred to bowl from and probably the fields that they’d set for batters. They then parted ways with a polite handshake. No hugs. No emotions. Mutual admirers, yes. But rivals till the very end. There was still a day of Test cricket left in Brisbane, even if Ashwin was not playing a role in it.

A few hours later, it was official. The Ashwin-Lyon battle for the top spot as the finger spinner – Muttiah Muralitharan, though an off-spinner in my opinion, is more in the wrist-spinning category owing to his action – with the highest number of Test wickets was officially over. Even if the Australian is trailing by four wickets.

For the record, the way in which the careers of the two exceptional operators of off-spin are interconnected is quite staggering. In addition to making their Test debuts only a couple of months apart, their milestone wickets right up to No. 500 all came in the space of three or four months. They stayed on each other’s tail till the very end.

Smith plays a reverse sweep off the bowling of Ashwin in 2014.

Ashwin’s unexpected announcement on Wednesday also meant Australia would no longer have to worry about one of their arch-nemeses. The man with 115 wickets at 25.58 apiece against them alongside being the ultimate competitor who always took extra joy in being a thorn in their flesh.

No other country suffered more at the hands of Ashwin’s wizardry with the ball. Mostly on Indian pitches, where he collected 75 of those scalps at an average of 21.20. But while his 40 wickets in Australia cost him 42.42 each, Ashwin’s best spells in this country always resulted in setting up victories for his team, including his six wickets at the Adelaide Oval in 2018 that earned a crucial win in the opening Test.

If Lyon was the bowler Ashwin competed against the most, Steve Smith was his ultimate rival. His greatest adversary. The spin scientist versus the batting professor. Their battles if anything were not just involving bat and ball. They were battles of the mind, like two chess masters constantly trying to outdo each other, forever trying to be a step ahead, with no quarters given or asked for.

It’s like the Stairway to Heaven solo. They say once every two minutes, someone is either listening to it or playing it on the guitar. For more than a decade, it felt like once every five minutes, Ashwin was bowling and Smith was trying to get the better of him. It was that intriguing. It was that absorbing. Two absolute superstars of their sport trying their best to one-up each other.

In the end, it’s safe to assume they finished on even keel. Their most celebrated stoush on Australian soil came four years ago, when Ashwin out-thought and outdid Smith in the first two Tests before the Australian No. 4 got his own with a sterling century at the SCG. The Border-Gavaskar Trophy will not feel the same without those two champions embroiled in a contest.

Ashwin liked getting stuck into the Aussies. A rather genial man off the field, he was feisty in the middle. His jousts with Tim Paine in Sydney in 2021 would gain immense notoriety after the way he went toe to toe with the Australian captain. His incredible show of grit, gumption and determination at the SCG would go into Australian cricket folklore.

Ashwin actually loved Australia. He loved coming to Australia. He’d often talk about how his favourite part was walking around the supermarkets, and getting lost in them. He loved the peace. He loved the space. So did his young family.

The one thing he didn’t always enjoy about the country at the very start of his career was bowling on these pitches. But it took him only one tour to get his head around it.

Being the ultimate cricket nuffy, he was always watching cricket. He was always keeping an eye on what the Aussies were doing. I was never too far away from receiving a message from him – either with an opinion or a query – about Lyon or Smith or any of the other Aussies he rated highly, In the past few years, Marnus Labuschagne grew quickly up that list of Australians he admired.

Not surprisingly, he developed quite a friendship with Labuschagne. The two even met for a meal in Chennai early last year when Australia were in Ashwin’s hometown for an ODI. But it was Lyon who he really felt at one with. And it was Lyon who he ended up spending the most time with on the day the sun set on his illustrious career.

The reasons for his sudden retirement will come to the fore as the days wear on. But there was a feeling that he might take the call if there was to be a scenario where he ended up spending most of this tour on the bench. He’d been left out in Perth, brought back at the Adelaide Oval, left out again at the Gabba. With India expected to stick with Ravindra Jadeja for the MCG and with no clear direction as to which one of Ashwin or Washington Sundar would play in case they went with the second spinner, Ashwin probably figured his time was done.

That he could return home to his wife and two lovely daughters without no longer having to worry about selection, form or Steve Smith.