R Ashwin’s fifth Test hundred, received with equal fervour by the Knowledgeable Chennai Crowd™ and Mohammed Siraj, renewed evaluations of his status as an all-rounder. But it rather overshadowed his 29th Test five-for, and overtook evaluations of his genius as a hooverer-up of wickets.

Seventh on the all-time list of Test five-for takers sounds unremarkable, until you dig deeper. Nobody has taken more five-fors in fewer than Ashwin’s 142 innings. Among bowlers who’ve bowled fewer than that, only Dennis Lillee and the absurd Edwardian SF Barnes among bowlers have close to as many.

To put it another way, he has as many five-fors as Glenn McGrath in 101 fewer innings.

Most Test Five-Fors At Year End Since R Ashwin’s Debut

Throw in the fact that Chennai was the third time that Ashwin has taken a five-for and scored a hundred in the same Test - only Ian Botham has done so more often - and we really are looking at one of the modern greats.

Ashwin’s rate of wicket-taking is extraordinary. He is almost certain to become the third fastest man to 400 Test wickets in terms of matches, and only the two faster than him, Muttiah Muralitharan and Richard Hadlee, have outdone him for frequency of five-for taking.

Fewest Innings Per Five-For (Year End Top Ten)

Nobody will ever catch Muralitharan.

Even the weakest modern Test bowling attack is deep enough that there simply aren't enough wickets left for one bowler to take on their own, or indeed to have to take on their own. Muralitharan has been retired for over a decade and has still taken almost one in five of all of Sri Lanka's Test wickets. And you can see the inverse of this with Ashwin.

During India’s home mega-season from June 2015 to March 2017, when at one point India played a home Test every two weeks for six months and the other bowlers were each broken in their turn, Ashwin took 16 five-fors in 44 innings. Since then, when India’s pace attack has begun to dominate even at home and the burden has been shared around more, he has taken only 4 in 50.

But, even so, Ashwin would only need 45 more innings going at his current rate of five-fors to overtake Warne. With his rejuvenated batting making him a viable option in a one-spinner attack, and his bowling so finely honed that he can change the fundamentals of his action in the middle of a Test, by the time of the next World Test Championship final in 2023, we could have a new best of the rest.