R Ashwin leaves the ball for a wide from Pakistan’s Nawaz in the 2022 T20 World Cup. (Screengrabs via ICC)
Ravichandran Ashwin, who recently announced his retirement from the Indian cricket team, has recalled in an interview how he made former India coach Rahul Dravid exult after the match against Pakistan, with his quick thinking ability.
Ashwin was referring to that famous leave against Pakistan in the T20 World Cup in 2022 when India needed just two runs off the final ball. India had lost the wicket of Dinesh Karthik on the previous ball with Virat Kohli at the other end. And then, Mohammad Nawaz bowled a ball to newcomer Ashwin which was down the leg side. Instead of throwing his bat at it and trying to force runs, Ashwin calmly watched the ball go to the wicketkeeper for a wide. On the next ball, he took India to victory.
“I hadn’t realized what I had done. I came back into the dressing room and I haven’t seen Rahul Dravid exult like that — I mean the second time I saw him exult was after the T20 World Cup, which we won recently. Until this moment, I hadn’t seen him exult. He came to me and said, ‘That’s why we had you in the squad! That’s the way you deal with this!” I didn’t quite honestly realise the magnitude of what that moment meant. I just saw the ball, and just let it go. Then it hit Rizwan and came back. I think Virat was almost celebrating. He just used his hand to say who the hell leaves a ball like that,” Ashwin said on the Sky Cricket Podcast while talking to Michael Atherton and Naaser Hussain.
He then credited his gully cricket background for the split-second decision.
“That there has always been my problem. That’s the fight between me and the rest of the cricketing world that I’ve had all these years. It’s like the cricketing world doesn’t seem to accept that there is this gully cricketer who’s come and he’s rubbed shoulders with us and remained organically a gully cricketer all through his life. It is quite a hard bit to accept and swallow because I don’t think gully cricket is so much of a thing in the Western world, in England, Australia and New Zealand.
“For me, gully cricket’s a huge part of my life. Even very late, probably middle of my career, I was still playing gully cricket with my friends. It brought about a happiness that I don’t think I’ve encountered anywhere else in the world. Leaving a ball on the leg side is a crucial factor for us to get a free hit because all our games they have offside runs. So it is very nearly about bowling underarm into your legs since you can’t score runs on legside. So the moment you have a ball down the legside, it’s very natural for me to just flick open my hips and leave that ball. Most people would say I spent midnight oil on that, to be able to leave that ball which is not the case,” Ashwin added.
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