I have the Streets: R.Ashwin’s Autobiography Review

For those of you unfamiliar with R.Ashwin, he is a renowned spin bowler in the game of cricket, a sport more prominently known in Asia and some of Europe. It is the journey of an ordinary athlete to India’s greatest match winner. I have read a few autobiographies, and of all the sports ones I’ve read, this stands out for its extraordinary writing. In fact, the opening is an anecdote that accomplishes two very different things with ease: to intrigue the reader and to show Ashwin’s  character. Most autobiographies are reflections of life from an older point in time, but Ashwin shares his thoughts and perspectives as they happened from the first person present tense. That really showed the maturing of Ashwin and by the end, it sort of gave you a satisfaction as if you raised Ashwin. He doesn’t drag too much about his love life, or too much into statistics of his game; it’s more like a public journal he wrote in every day until 2011.. It doesn’t cover all of his career; in fact, it only covers up to the start of his full-fledged career and didbt even go into his peak. This book was not meant to be an account of someone’s life; it is a journey full of rights and wrongs and an example for future cricketers that ordinary people can land in extraordinary situations beyond their dreams. The title summarizes the quality of the book; R.Ashwin and his book truly have the streets.