Test cricket is a singular sport. Its challenges cannot be replicated elsewhere. Playing just one Test puts you in the select company of the few thousand who, over the span of a century and a half, have experienced what it feels like. A hundred Tests make for a lifetime's work. Especially when you happen to be an Indian spinner, whom foreign conditions are meant to eliminate, making you miss many matches.

R Ashwin gets to the mark in Dharamsala this week. He very nearly had to wait for his next series to get to the hundred when his mother had a health emergency in the middle of the Rajkot Test. The strong support system he has at home made sure he was back on the park soon enough. In a way, that has been his family's purpose ever since he can remember: to clear away anything that might come in the way of his cricket.

This interview is as much a tribute to his family as it is about how great Test cricket is. As Ashwin himself says, "You can get high on Test cricket." Hear hear.

Before you, only 76 people in the world have played 100 Tests. Of them only 13 are Indians. Nobody from Tamil Nadu has done it. Test cricket is such a unique experience that you can't replicate it elsewhere; playing a hundred matches is something else altogether. What does it mean to you?
It doesn't mean as much as it means to my dad and my mum. Or my wife.

"You can play T20, you can play ODIs, but there is nothing close to playing a Test match for your country. If you have won a hard-fought Test match, I don't think there is any better feeling. You can actually be high on a Test match - that's how good it is"

Yes, I'm very good with numbers but there is a difference between remembering numbers and that actually meaning something great for you. This will be like, "I've ticked another box." There have been several times that I have thought whether 100 Tests means anything at all. Zak [Zaheer Khan] didn't play a hundred. MS [Dhoni] didn't. Adam Gilchrist didn't. It's just another number.

But the one thing that has really motivated me is the fact that I am the first from my part of the country to play a hundred Tests. In Tamil Nadu, we love the game. We talk about it a lot, we play the game a lot, we completely enjoy it. There is a great system, there is some phenomenal talent, but as cricketers we don't understand and embrace what happens in the rest of the country. The cricketing culture is vastly different. The pressures are very different. The breathing space our well-run system gives us doesn't exist at international level. We do well in club cricket, we get into the first-class team, our state association looks after us better than many, and if we fail, we can still go back to club cricket and sustain ourselves and try to come back into the first-class team. We don't really push our boundaries.

When we get into the Indian team, or an IPL team, we are not always prepared for a scenario that we will get only one or two chances to prove ourselves. That is the pressure I have played with for long durations in my career.

I think my going on to represent India in a hundred Tests really means something in that regard. I wouldn't say I am a motivation for others. I might well be, but that is not what I set out to do. It is the experience of having played a hundred Tests and having experienced this wonderful country and the cricket community of this wonderful country that I can share with cricketers, and probably help more cricketers from my part of the country to come through.

Ashwin's wife Prithi watches him play his second-ever Test, at Eden Gardens in Kolkata, a day after their wedding in 2011 © Getty Images

You said it means a lot more for your parents and your wife. I think we saw a great example of it during the Rajkot Test. I think they made it possible for you to get back and get to 100 Tests in this series.
I knew what my mom would say. I knew what my wife would say. I knew what my dad would say. When I landed and got to the hospital, my mom was slipping in and out of consciousness, and the first thing she asked me was, "Why did you come?" The next time she was conscious, she said, "I think you should go back because the Test match is happening."

The entire family is built on cricket and to facilitate my career. It hasn't been easy. It has been very hard on them. It's been a big rollercoaster for them - going through the emotions and ups and downs that I myself do. I am sure most parents and families are like that, but my parents' lives are even more intertwined with my cricket. I mean, I'm in the second half of my thirties and my dad still watches a game like he would watch my first international game. It means a lot to them. Compared to what it means to them, it definitely means less to me.

Anything and everything around what I have to do, or what my cricket is like, it's very seamlessly attached to them. They have eliminated anything that comes in the way of my cricket. That has been the sole purpose of their lives ever since I can remember.

It is very difficult to find a family like me, my dad and mom. I've forgotten to add two other members: my grandfather and my aunt. We used to live in a joint family. For about eight years, my granddad used to bring my cricket kit, my cricket clothes, milk and all and just stand outside the ground or spread a newspaper and sit on the ground, and make sure that everything was going right, because both my parents were working. If I came back home, my aunt would be the caretaker. She would provide what I needed.

"When I got to the hospital, my mom was slipping in and out of consciousness, and the next time she was conscious, she said, 'I think you should go back because the Test match is happening'"

It was as if I was living the dream my dad wanted to achieve. Imagine somebody wanted to become a cricketer [but doesn't]. He gets married, he has a son. And he wants to live the dream through his son, and he does everything from teaching me, to taking notes from my classmates, to taking me to private tuitions to make sure I play the maximum possible amount of cricket while still finishing my education. And this lady coming from some other hamlet says, "I support you because you couldn't become a cricketer. Let's support our son to become a cricketer. Let's work our backsides off." And the father-in-law supports it, and then the sister-in-law supports it.

And then I marry someone and she has no clue what this lifestyle is all about. Prithi had no clue what my life was like. She just jumped on the rollercoaster. And I think it hit her really hard for the first two-three years. She couldn't understand how this house functioned. Over the last four or five years of cricket, since Covid, I can safely say - before that it was my dad and mum - whatever cricket I've played, it's largely because of Prithi. She has brought a beautiful balance into our lives.

If I was a cricketer, and if I knew how emotionally attached so many people are to my performance, how much it means to my loved ones, it would put a lot of pressure on me.
Over the last few years Prithi and the kids have told me a few stories. How they watch the match from the same place every time. How if, say, I picked up wickets and Dad is talking to someone on the phone, he will make sure he finds the same person to talk to on the phone the next time.

I definitely do believe my exposure to the rest of the world has kind of opened me up a lot more. Every time I come back home, I keep telling them, "I think you should switch off from me. You should do a lot more other things." We discuss very little about the game, but we watch the game together. When I'm home and some other match is happening, we watch it together.

© Getty Images

But just knowing that, you know, when you are playing, let's say, somewhere in Delhi or Mumbai, and you know that your dad is watching with such intensity at home…
Actually it's never crossed my mind over the years. Because staying in the present is one of my strengths. Only because I've stayed in the present, I've been able to not think about it. And I think that's a wonderful blessing.

That's not something you had to work on?
See, there are certain instances when the pressure is high. Prithi and other people tell me when the game is on the line and there's pressure, my parents don't worry about it because they know I will get on top of it. That has been the case right from my Under-14, Under-16 days. In a way, I embrace pressure.

Would you say you have a basic innate love for competition?
Possibly. That's what also brings out some of these interesting debates that I end up becoming a part of, because that's a competitive streak of wanting to win. That I find every possible hack or troubleshooting mechanism to do so.

We on the outside can possibly replicate the experience of T20 or 50-overs cricket to some extent, but Test cricket is something else. Very few people get to experience it. Can you articulate for us what Test cricket is like - let alone playing 100 matches?
Really taxing.

Let's say you play a hundred Tests. Even if you account for shorter Tests, you still end up playing at least 400 days. That's on the field. Preparation for three days, with meetings and one hard practice and one relaxed practice before the game. That's 300 days added to 400. And then you travel, you have pre-series camps, you prepare on your own before joining the team. So it's literally like you have to put ten days into a Test match.

"Some things are meant to be. We shouldn't say that I did this and it happened. You can only do so much. There is definitely something more that you need. You need somebody to nick the right ball to slip"

And depending on how your mood swings or how you play, and what your day was like, where the Test match is standing, you cannot switch off. Even for your family travelling, it has to be the hardest life. I know it seems unbelievably beautiful from the outside that you're travelling to England, you're travelling to Australia. You know, the first time I saw the London Eye was with my daughter when we went there last time? If one fine day Prithi says, "I want to go on holiday" and I say, "You just came back from England," she'll be like, "I was on work. I was on work with you."

You are pretty much locked away inside a hotel room. And you are worried if you had a bad day, or the Test match is not going your way, or you lost the Test match, you don't feel like going for dinner. You don't want to be seen. You want to be in your bunker.

And that's doubly hard when you're in India. I'm very grateful because without those sorts of fans, I wouldn't be who I am today. And the Indian team wouldn't be as popular as it is today. But it takes a toll on the family and your personal life. And if you're playing Test cricket and you're playing for India - you can play T20, you can play ODIs, I have done all of those - there is nothing close to playing a Test match for your country.

And it's a proper test. It's pressure, it's skills, it's adaptability, it's physical fitness, it's bouncebackability, resolve over skill sometimes. And you need to be able to deploy every single one of these attributes. You have to put everything together. And that's the beauty of it. At the end of a Test match, if you have had a great Test match and you have won a hard-fought Test match, I don't think there is any better feeling. You can actually be high on a Test match. That's how good it is.

Ashwin celebrates his maiden hundred, in his third Test. "MS [Dhoni] said, 'I didn't know you batted so well" © AFP

The evenings must be so difficult to manage, but it's also very important to manage them well. In terms of injury maintenance, mental energy, getting sleep.
The last 50 Test matches, I have gone to sleep at nine o'clock almost every day. My dinner is done by seven, I sleep by nine. If I don't sleep by nine and wake up by six, I feel awful when playing the next day. I just don't have the same amount of energy. And I've had my fair share of injuries and a few niggles here and there. So those require maintenance.

If I am on a Test tour, I have the same food morning, afternoon, evening for over 20 days before I take a break. Because I'm lactose-intolerant and gluten-intolerant, I have to literally live on the same food. If I have even a little bit of lactose in the evening or a little bit of gluten, I am unwell through the next day.

I don't even think these are sacrifices because this is what I trade for what I love.

How easily do you sleep? For example, day four of Adelaide 2018. You have taken two wickets, you are on the brink of a big overseas Test win. Were you able to go to sleep at nine?
I slept like a baby.

Weren't you buzzing?
No. Things were in my control.

"When people talk about overthinking - no, that's my bread and butter. Only because I watch so much cricket and overthink can I catch people on the wrong foot"

As it turned out, the pitch had flattened out completely. Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon brought Australia really close. Had they got there, would you have been able to sleep easily?
No. I would have had to [talk to] some people and get through the night. Just like there's no feeling that compares with winning a hard-fought Test, losing one is just as painful.

How well do you remember your first Test match? From the moment you were told you were playing, to preparing, to getting the cap?
Somebody who played a very significant role for me until I got to the IPL, Sunil Subramanian, was there for the Test match. I had called him over. I think my dad might have also come. Lachchu bhai [VVS Laxman] handed me the cap. That's one Test match where Prithi wasn't there. I will officially be a hundred at Dharamsala; she will be 99.

I remember Sachin paaji at mid-off, trying to help me out. MS was, as usual, very confident. For some reason videos from the game have cropped up on YouTube recently. I saw the nine wickets again. Three and six.

I don't think MS knew that I could bat as well as I did. Because in the IPL you don't see that much of batting. I was a very ordinary No. 9, No. 8. I was still coping with the speed changes. Hitting the ball didn't come naturally to me. He didn't know that, but after I got my first hundred [in his third Test], he said, "I didn't know that you batted so well." Eventually he also gave me a couple of opportunities to open for CSK and sent me up the order later on because he felt like I was a good touch player. Barring Baz [McCullum] and Dwayne Smith, whom they took one year, MS has largely gone for touch players for openers. He really likes those touch players.

Do you remember how you felt when you got your first wicket, Darren Bravo?
I think it was just run of the mill. It wasn't a big deal. He went back to cut and the ball went on and he was bowled.

As early as your first Test, there were signs of things to come. India were behind by about 90, you took the new ball in the second innings and took six wickets. Signs like how you would go on to often bowl with the new ball.
Definitely the new ball is something that I've always relished over the years. You can't expect that to happen every time. And I have not opened the bowling in Australia or whatever. It's just something when you are putting pressure on the game. Especially in the second innings, if you can drill it in, things become easier. Somehow that just works for me.

One thing I have always wondered about your career is what shape you were in after the 2012-13 home series defeat against England. You yourself didn't have a great series with the ball. There was talk that you might be dropped. I myself might have written that you were more a T20 bowler who was compulsively bowling variations. How did you deal with it?
I think as a Test cricketer or an international cricketer or somebody at the highest level, ups and downs are a very common thing. How you handle your ups and how you troubleshoot your downs are what will define you as a cricketer or as an individual.

It's not the destination that makes you. It's the journey that made it for me. I still remember leading up to the Border Gavaskar Trophy [just after the England series] what sort of pressure there was on me. Because when I went to the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association to take match tickets for my family, somebody said, "You are going to be dropped." I remember Parvez Rasool had taken wickets in the side game. Harbhajan Singh was coming back.

"The first time I saw the London Eye was with my daughter when we went there last time. If one fine day my wife says, 'I want to go on holiday' and I say, 'You just came back from England', she'll be like, 'I was on work. I was on work with you'"

I had played three series before , two at home and one in Australia, and was Player of the Series in two. I found it interesting that I could be dropped, but you can't go to a casino and have a fight with the dealer because he deals you bad cards. You need to be able to play with the cards he dealt you. The greatest lesson I've learned, and I have followed, is this: I play my hand and I play the man.

I made it external. For me, there have been a lot of internal battles, but externally I have managed to put pressure on oppositions, to take away the pressure that I feel internally. When I say internally, I feel like I'm alone in this race, and I'm alone in this game. Whatever is said and done, cricket is a team game that is played by 11 individuals. I have made sure if I am under 10x pressure, I will try and put 50x pressure on my opposition. So I feel less pressure.

You look them in the eye, you'll know when somebody's breaking. If somebody loves a dessert and you don't feed them that dessert for 30 days, they'll be funny. Under duress, people make a lot of mistakes. That's why when people talk about overthinking - no, that's my bread and butter. Only because I watch so much cricket and overthink can I catch people on the wrong foot.

The thought that you could potentially have been dropped at that time tells me a few things. One is how rare it was for India to lose at home. And the second is how much is expected of a spinner in India. Third was, you were a young guy; it would have been easier to drop you. How did you come back from that period?
Firstly, I think very differently. How rare it is to lose a series in India - that's not my burden to carry. The Indian teams in the past played [those series]. If they lost or won, I've enjoyed it as a fan. I've enjoyed it as a cricketer. But that's not my weight to carry. I never saw it like that.

c Rahane b Ashwin: "I had Virat Kohli at short midwicket, Pujara at leg slip, Ajinkya at slip forever," Ashwin says "If I have to thank someone beyond my family, it's those three" © Getty Images

And how important it is as an India spinner, I didn't see that either because I'm not the only cricketer playing in that series. There are 11 players who played every single match. And when you lose, no one person loses a game. You lose it as a team. And sometimes when you say that in a team meeting or when you talk about it but don't apply it, I find it amusing. These are the beliefs I had. The things that you said didn't cross my mind till today.

I knew my batting was going all right, so I continued making runs. With the ball I knew the error I was making. I was getting hit off both back foot and front foot. I was getting cut. I was not hitting the sticker of the bat. When somebody is defending, you must be able to hit the sticker of the bat, you need to get your length right. When I looked to spin the ball to drop the length, I was getting the line wrong and I was getting cut. So clearly my alignment was going all over the place. I realised when I watched the footage that my hip separation wasn't right. How do I address the hip separation? I went away and I worked.

We were playing a corporate trophy for India Cements in Nagpur. I took Sunil along with me, just to check. I love spot bowling. When I was spot bowling, I figured out that my hip separation was taking my left foot wider. When I brought that distance down, I was very balanced at the crease, and I went into the series and did what I had to do. I changed my action, I corrected it. I did what I had to do.

What does the future have in store?
Don't know, man. I've not thought about it. This hundred Tests means more to my family than it does to me. So whatever is remaining, I will do according to what they say. I don't think I'll make decisions anymore.

During the pandemic you needed to withdraw from the 2021 IPL to go home, because multiple members of your extended family had Covid at one point. You have said in the past that the Covid period gave you a lot of perspective about cricket. How did you think of cricket before and how did it change after that?
I felt before Covid it was very rudimentary and very one-dimensional. It was Ashwin the cricketer going through serious ups and downs. But ever since Covid came, I have genuinely thought about life beyond cricket. And I wanted to do other things. I didn't know when Covid would end, what cricket I would have left to play.

"I found it interesting that I could be dropped, but you can't go to a casino and have a fight with the dealer because he deals you bad cards. You need to be able to play with the cards he dealt you"

I didn't know what cricketing life had in store. So I started to plan a life outside cricket. Should I do coaching? Should I do broadcasting? Maybe just quit the game altogether? I enrolled for a couple of courses for finance management. But what eventually happened was, I was training and I don't know what I was training for. I had set some goals, got a dietician, and then suddenly things opened up. I went to Australia. I had a good series.

Imagine, the last two years I haven't played much outside India. [Ravindra] Jadeja has been the frontline spinner. Again, I knew he was going to be the frontline spinner, but he got injured. And I went and I had a great series [in Australia in 2020-21]. I think it gave me a fresh lease of life again. Some things are meant to be. We shouldn't say that I did this and it happened. You can only do so much. There is definitely something more that you need. You need somebody to nick the right ball to slip.

I mean, I've been lucky and blessed to have Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara at slip and leg slip. I had Virat Kohli at short midwicket, Pujara at leg slip, Ajinkya at slip forever. That is impenetrable. If I have to thank someone beyond my family, it's those three. Along with Rohit [Sharma] taking some catches at short leg. Rohit has filled in for Ajinkya at slip.

And the wicketkeepers. I can't remember Wriddhi Saha or MS dropping anything. Rishabh [Pant] came in and he improved drastically. Within one or two Tests, he started catching and stumping everything.

Sidharth Monga is a senior writer at ESPNcricinfo

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