Silver Silva
International Regular
But Kumble isn't a 2000's cricketer solely..He actually played more in the 90's, than he did in the 2000's ..This. Plus Kumble played a Pakistan lineup with Inzi, Yousuf and Younis. England were at least as strong as they are now in the 2000s. Australia were an ATG XI. SL has Sanga, Jaya and Sam. SA always a fairly strong lineup with good players of spin like Cullinan, Kirsten, and Cronje. NZ mostly sucked but Fleming was a great player of spin.
Overall batting quality was far ahead of what Ashwin faced.
He faced Sri Lanka in 11 Tests before Sangakkara and Samaraweera even debuted in Test Cricket..You make a lot of generalisations.