It’s been that kind of series. India’s batting woes have been fairly well documented, but Australia’s top three have barely made any runs either. Marsh has had an almost Agarkar-esque series so far, with just three runs in three innings.

But India’s bowlers have struggled to dismiss anyone after running through the top three. Ashwin’s inability to find breakthroughs has been one factor in this. In the first two Tests, he toiled through 95 overs, easily the most by any of the Indian bowlers, to pick up four wickets at 74.50. Of the four, none came at Sydney, and only one was of a specialist batsman. That wicket, if you are a particularly harsh critic, was a caught-behind of Ed Cowan that didn’t touch the left-hander’s edge.

But the tracks at Melbourne and Sydney didn’t offer him any turn or up-and-down bounce, and his economy rate of 3.13 was only behind Zaheer Khan among India’s specialist bowlers. Among the Australians, only Ben Hilfenhaus was more economical than Ashwin.

Promising start

In the first innings at the MCG, he kept things tight in the first innings in a critical period, pulling things back for India in tandem with Ishant Sharma after some wayward bowling from Umesh Yadav had let Cowan string sizeable partnerships with Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke. In the second innings, Ashwin had an easy catch spilled at slip off Mike Hussey, and that wicket might well have produced a different result.

But Ashwin never looked like creating any chances during the second Test. MS Dhoni’s fields for him were ultra-defensive, right from his very first spell, and it didn’t seem as if the skipper was trying to take wickets with his lone spinner.

At the start of the tour, during a press conference at the Manuka Oval in Canberra, Ashwin had laid out his plans for the Test series.

“Try and attack the stumps for the left hander, bowl outside off stump to the right handers. That’s what I’m going to look to do,” he said. “I think you have to really try and spin it and try and drop it on the batsman as much as possible.”

Ashwin’s wagon wheel against Ponting at the SCG didn’t suggest that he had been trying to bowl outside off stump to the right hander or beat him in the air. In the 60 balls he faced from the off spinner, Ponting played only three scoring shots on the off side, two singles and a double.

On a wicket with barely any turn in it, Ponting didn’t try to drive Ashwin through cover at all — suggesting that Ashwin didn’t try to make him play that stroke. His line, instead, was closer to middle-and-leg. Of the 39 runs Ponting scored in those 60 deliveries, 35 came through the leg side.

Pragmatism kicks in

The Ashwin who had spoken the language of a classical spinner in Canberra spoke the language of an arch-pragmatist at the SCG, after a long and fruitless second day. “I’m sorry but you have got to be a fool if you try to spin the ball from outside off and hit the top of leg every time you come into the attack,” he said. “As a spinner what is there on offer from that wicket? Nothing.”

Kerry O’Keeffe, the former Australia leg spinner turned ABC commentator, wasn’t too impressed with Ashwin’s SCG display.

“I think you have to bring a deceptive spinner to Australia,” he said. “Not somebody who gnaws away and waits for a mistake — unless it’s (Anil) Kumble, who was never beaten, and would wear away. He could convert none for 80 into five for 120. But I think the way the Australians play, deception pays. I remember how Mushtaq Ahmed flummoxed Australia with his wrong ‘un, Abdul Qadir did the same, and I thought, if you must bring a spinner to Australia you must have something that’s a little bit different. R Ashwin has got something different, but his stock ball isn’t strong enough to set it up.”

But going by Ashwin’s pre-series talk, it might not have been his own idea to bowl a defensive line and stop trying to make batsmen drive him against the turn. It’s not new for Dhoni to use spinners in a purely containing role outside the subcontinent. The leg-and-middle line and the frequent concession of singles were fairly common themes when Harbhajan Singh played under Dhoni.