India’s off-spinner was on fire on Day 4 of a County Championship encounter between Surrey and Somerset on July 14. Ashwin, who was thwarted in the previous few days, troubled the batsman throughout the day as he picked up wickets with ease.

In Somerset’s first innings, Ashwin was dealt with comfortably as he finished with 1/99 in 43 overs. Tom Lammonby was his only victim.

However, he upped the ante and gave his team, Surrey, a real fighting chance in the match.

He started Somerset’s destruction by dismissing Steven Davies for just 7 runs. He then followed it up with his first innings victim Lammonby, who got out for 3 runs.

Ashwin, who was gaining steam, got his third wicket in the form of Somerset’s captain James Hildreth who was caught in front of the wicket for 14 runs. During his stay in the middle, he managed to get two boundaries under his belt.

Running through the middle-order, Ashwin bowled George Bartlett for 12 off 21 and then dismissed Roelof van der Merwe LBW for 7.

Somerset crumbled in front of Ashwin’s skill as he chipped away at the wickets.

His last victim came in the form of Ben Green, who was castled for 3.

The Somerset 2nd innings was wrapped up 69 in 29.1 overs. Only 3 batsmen could cross the double-figure mark – Devon Conway (12) Hildreth (14) and Bartlett (12).

Ashwin returned with figures of 6/27 in the 15 overs that he bowled. With four maidens in his kitty, he displayed an economy rate of 1.80.

Ravichandran Ashwin made his maiden and only appearance for Surrey in an English county championship.

The Indian off-spinner became the first specialist slow bowler in the last 11 years to open the bowling in an English county game after Jeetan Patel in the year 2010.

With Indians not having too many first-class games and with the Test series lying ahead of them, Ashwin and the BCCI took the initiative to arrange one game for him to get overs under his belt.