Still A Fair Distance To Go But Ravichandran Ashwin Is Capable Of Beating Anil Kumble's Record - Sunil Gavaskar

Former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar believes that Anil Kumble’s tally of 619 wickets is quite far away at the moment but if there’s one player who can get there, it is Ravichandran Ashwin.

Ashwin recently became the second-highest wicket-taker among Indians, going past Kapil Dev’s tally of 434 wickets. He also went on to move Dale Steyn’s tally of 439 wickets to become the eighth-most successful Test bowler in the world.

“It’s still a fair distance to go, we are talking about another 160 wickets. But he is capable of doing that because he just keeps getting better. He doesn’t rest on his laurels,” Gavaskar said in a conversation with Star Sports.

“Ashwin and Bumrah are so similar” – Sunil Gavaskar

Gavaskar went on to add that the pace bowler, Jasprit Bumrah, is quite similar to Ashwin in terms of mentality. Neither of them wants an easy wicket and they are always looking to outfox and outthink their opponents.

“Jasprit Bumrah, who got into Test cricket after Ashwin, is exactly like Ashwin in the sense that he is always looking to add to his repertoire. That is what Ashwin does. At a time a year and year-and-half-ago, Ashwin was trying leg-spin because you can as variety ball bowl that, especially if you have got 500 runs in the bank.”

“He is not afraid to experiment. Yes, he might get hit, that’s the nature of the game. But the fact that he is doing something different and wanting to create doubts in the batter’s mind.

“He and Bumrah are so similar in that aspect, aggressive bowlers, wanting to get wickets and not just happy with getting those easy wickets. They want to make sure they have got the batters,” Gavaskar added.

Bumrah’s Test career is also quite young but he has what it takes to be considered an all-time great. For now, India will be happy if he keeps up his knack of taking wickets no matter the conditions.

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