Austin, I know you are 80% trolling and 20% throwing out data. But what they hey it's been a relaxing day so I'll humor you.
You mention that India has not had that many Test serieses either. But see, it's not just the getting of the series but also the # of matches in the series. Then, as others have pointed out, the type of wickets Ashwin gets are spin friendly - we have poor pitch preparation history and limited scope of soil and weather condition so we end up making rolled clay, low-and-flat pitches. Finally there's the small matter of the team (aka supporting cast) that you are playing with. In all three, R. Ashwin has HUGE advantages.
Most of the time when Ashwin comes to bowl, he has a lot of runs in the kitty to play with and can really attack. BD batters do not have the overall higher skill level of the Indian batting side - and so we can never give Shak that luxury. Plus the opposition is always worried about what total is safe from the Kohlis and Dhawans so they take risks too. Finally when Ashwin comes to bat, the opposition bowlers are already exhausted.
Still, it is what you do with the pitch and the opportunities the team has given you and ever since Ashwin was dropped from the Test side and then came back, he's been a beast. he's stopped with the dodgy doosra and become arguably the best offie in the game with a lovely loop that evokes Bhajji in his pomp. His batting has always been underrated and if he was getting a chance to bat higher in the order he may have had made more runs. So fair dinkum to Ravichandra and he fully deserves the best all-rounder ranking.
But at least admit this - you wouldn't play him as purely a batsman in this Indian side would you?
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