R Ashwin, at the age of 35, has made it back into the white-ball scheme of things for India. On Wednesday, he bowled in an ODI for the first time since June 2017. Wrist-spinners in shorter formats have started to recede, Ashwin got a chance to make his mark.
With the sun baking up the dry and sluggish pitch in Paarl, it made for ideal conditions for Ashwin to make his comeback count. Yuzvendra Chahal, whose career shot to dizzy heights when he bamboozled the South Africans in the ODI series in 2018, was expected to apply the choke from the other end. Just when it seemed like the two spinners would put the South Africans in a spin, Rassie van der Dussen and Temba Bavuma brought out the sweep shot - both the reverse and the conventional one.
