Earlier this year, R Ashwin played his 100th Test. He has 516 Test wickets; only one Indian, Anil Kumble, has more. But in his autobiography, there isn’t a mention of any of those wickets. And yet, I Have the Streets, which he has co-authored with cricket writer Sidharth Monga, works.

Ashwin is one of India’s finest cricketers. He is fiercely competitive and keeps reinventing himself as a bowler. Throughout his career, he has often reminded us of the fact that he had started out as a batter, an opening one at that, with some gritty knocks. Like he did with his 39 not out against Australia in the third Test at Sydney in 2021. Despite a painful injury, he batted for more than three hours, giving staunch support to Hanuma Vihari, to help India save the Test, which would pave the way for India’s greatest Test win in the following match at Brisbane.

You would not get any insight into that gritty knock at Sydney in I Have the Streets. The book is about how Ashwin travelled from 1st Street, Ramakrishnapuram, West Mambalam, Chennai, all the way to the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai, where he became part of the Indian team that won the 2011 World Cup.

Passion for the game

The autobiography is also a delightful account of childhood and of coming of age (he talks about how his school sweetheart became his wife, too). Plenty of space in I Have the Streets is devoted to Ashwin’s earliest days in cricket. We are told of his passion for the game. He not merely enjoyed playing cricket, but he also loved watching matches — some of them in distant Mumbai — at the ground and on television. He was lucky that his father was just as mad as himself about the game.

We discover about his health conditions because of which his mother asked him to try off-spin if he felt leg-spin was tough (he had been a pacer), and how his father went that extra mile to support his cricket.

We also learn how Ashwin develops a stomach ache — requiring absence from school — just in time to watch the highlights of Brian Lara’s epic 153 not out that took the West Indies to a stunning one-wicket victory against Australia in the Bridgetown Test in 1999. The mysterious ailment would return for India’s Test victory against the West Indies at Port of Spain. ‘Appa knows. There is no need to wink.’ (The book mentions that it happened the following year, but it was actually in 2002).

There are several sentences that would put a smile on your face. Humour, in fact, helps the book greatly. Talking of Anirudha Srikkanth, his friend, Tamil Nadu teammate and rival, he says: ‘We have both been opening batters, we have both scored heavily... but he has more games against Goa than I have.’ (A cricket follower would understand runs scored against Karnataka would count more than those against Goa).

Ashwin’s fears about his future (at a time when neither cricket nor academics promised enough) also find expression. He wonders whether his name plate outside his home — in the Chennai tradition of adding educational qualifications — would read Ravichandran Ashwin, Twelfth Standard. (That fear would prove unfounded: he would get a degree in Engineering). There are also some interesting short profiles of his friends in street cricket.

Ashwin also paints a vivid picture of Chennai’s vibrant cricket culture. We get glimpses into the city’s highly competitive domestic structure. He acknowledges the roles the coaches like WV Raman have played in his career.

The book also tells us why his ‘Mankading’ Jos Buttler in an IPL game — one recalls filing a report from Jaipur on the incident for the late edition of The Hindu — really should not have come as a surprise. He had done it as a kid to Anirudha.

The book, of course, talks about finer points of cricket, such as developing a carrom ball. We get a close look at how MS Dhoni became such a fine leader of men, despite his pep talk at team meetings usually lasting a sentence (‘All good, let’s go’).

The writer is Senior Assistant Editor-Sports, ‘The Hindu’

Title: I Have the Streets: A Kutty Cricket Story
Authors: R Ashwin and Sidharth Monga
Publisher: Penguin
Price: ₹599