He has undoubtedly left an indelible impression with his bowling with the red ball for the posterity to yearn for longer formats of the game. But its his batting that often goes unnoticed. It wasn’t the case during the first Test against Bangladesh at the M.A Chidambaram Stadium, the home venue for the burly Indian all-rounder. Yes, there should be no qualms in writing Ashwin under the all-rounder’s category. One may take a look at the ICC Test rankings under the list of top all-rounders. The one which was last updated on September 24, 2024, suggests that Ravichandran Ashwin is ranked at second with 322 ratings behind countrymen Ravindra Jadeja. Ashwin justified newly-appointed Indian coach Gautam Gambhir’s remarks that the country shouldn’t make an obsession with fast-bowling all-rounders and instead preferred to preserve their luxurious spin-bowling all-rounders, which not many countries have developed as observed by the former Indian batter. Ashwin, one of the spin-bowling all-rounders mentioned by Gambhir, came to the rescue act for India when the hosts were 144 for 6 down against Bangladesh in the first innings on the afternoon of the opening day. He loves to response to the pressure and that’s what he did in front of his home crowd upon his return in the ‘Whites’ for India after three years in Chennai. The knock that was in Chepauk for R Ashwin the ‘homeboy’ With the assistance of 11 boundaries and two sixes, Ashwin scored 113 runs from 133 balls to bail India out from a precarious situation along with his twin spin-bowling all-rounder Jadeja (86). The duo stitched 199 runs for the seventh wicket to leave India in a healthy position at the end of their first innings with a total of 376 on the board. This was Ashwin’s sixth Test century, and his fastest in the longest format coming in 108 balls. On Sunday, he became the first player to achieve a double feat of scoring a century and claiming five wickets in a Test match at the same venue twice in his career. The last (and the first time) he did something like this at Chepauk was against England in the second Test match in February 2021 (when he scored 106 and returned with figures of 5 for 43). “Whatever came off the bat was coming of the middle (talking about batting shots) quite a while. I surprised myself. But having played at past in Chepauk for the last six-seven years, (I have understood) the ball doesn’t leave the bat as well as it does. That is because of the pace of the pitch,” Ashwin told JioCinema after the match while speaking about his fastest Test hundred. According to an observation made by The Indian Express, ever since Ashwin and Jadeja have played together in Tests since 2012, the Tamil Nadu player has scored 1141 runs which is more than some of the top order Indian batters of past such as KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal and Shikhar Dhawan. Ashwin’s four Test centuries at home is more than Dhawan (2) and Rahul (1) and is equal to Rahane (4). “The last four five years of my journey as a batter has been more simpler than what it was in the past. I use to confuse myself with respect to being a bowler (while) thinking ahead of the game sometimes as a batter. With batting it’s jut simple – watching the ball and reacting to it. Compartmentalising both was a challenge, but I think I have just cracked it a little bit,” Ashwin said. According to a report by The Indian Express, Ashwin visited Seattle in the Washington State of USA to understand the mechanism of bat and ball. It was something that helped him to apply in his batting, and as the Indian all-rounder said, the ball is coming at the middle of the bat often. TNPL season with Dindigul outfit serves as preparations for build up The Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL) 2024 played a key role for Ashwin in the build up of the first Test, according to his own admission. He led the Dindigul Dragons to its maiden league title in August. He played a key role with the bat, playing as a floater in the batting order, opening in four inning, batting at No.6 and No.3 twice each, and also batted at No.3 once. Ashwin amassed 252 runs in nine innings at a strike rate of 151.80, his batting form peaked in the knockout stage, where he notched up all three of his half-centuries of the tournament. He scored 52 runs off 46 balls against Lyca Kovai Kings in the final to set the tone for the Dragons in a low-scoring chase of 130. “One thing that really helped me was the kind of preparation I put in for the TNPL. I have had my (probably) best years as a batter in the IPL over the last three years. But just this year it felt like I need to up my years and work on several gameplans,” Ashwin said. “And I gave at a good preparatory camp getting into TNPL and I had a good finish in the TNPL. I just took the confidence going into TNPL,” he added.