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BRISBANE: The announcement was made. R Ashwin was no longer going to be an India cricketer and as the whole of India reacted to the shocking retirement, there was this stormy calm at The Gabba. The drizzle continued and the floodlights were still on as the broadcast crew worked in overdrive to safely pack their equipment before calling it a day. Both teams had left the venue, most gates were shut but there was a large goods vehicle parked close to gate No. 6.
Three stockily built gentlemen were doing the heavy lifting and loading the kitbags of Indian cricketers into the truck. It’s a usual practice to send the kits and other heavy equipment before the team departs to their next destination but the cargo will now be a bag less as Ashwin’s gear will be directed to Chennai instead of Melbourne.
R Ashwin announces retirement from Test cricket
The warm hug with Virat Kohli in the change room had fuelled speculation before India’s greatest off-spinner dropped the bombshell at the post-match press-conference. Known for his meticulous ways of going about things, it was a rather snap announcement by Ashwin who had his captain and long-time teammate Rohit Sharma by his side.
“I am not going to take too much of your time. This will be my last year as an Indian cricketer in all formats at the international level. I do feel there is a bit of punch left in me as a cricketer but I would like to expose and probably showcase that in club level cricket but this will be the last day,” came the announcement.
No excessive use of words or adjectives and the 38-year-old called time on his international career spanning over 15 years. He remembered his teammates, the “last bunch of OGs”, Rohit, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara and thanked them for taking those catches in close-in positions.
“There are a lot of people to thank but I would be failing in my duties if I didn’t thank the BCCI and the fellow team mates. I want to name a few of them. All the coaches who have been a part of the journey, most importantly Rohit, Virat, Ajinkya, Pujara who have taken those splendid catches around the bag to give me the number of wickets I have managed to get over the years,” he added with the wit still intact.
Ashwin, who played one of the three Tests in the series, didn’t stay in the media room for more than a few minutes and made his way out to a rapturous applause. The announcement was snap, the news came as a shocker but the great man had it all figured in his head during the first Test in Perth. Jasprit Bumrah was the stand-in captain for that game but the moment Rohit arrived, Ashwin broke the news to his captain and it was only after a lot of convincing that he agreed to play the Adelaide fixture.
“I heard this when I came to Perth. Obviously I was not there for the first three or four days of the Test match, but this was in his mind since then. There are obviously a lot of things that went behind it. I am pretty sure Ash when in position will be able to answer that.
“But he understands what the team is thinking, he understands what kind of combinations we are thinking and you know when we came here as well we were not sure about which spinner is going to play… we just wanted to assess and see what kind of conditions we get in front of us but yeah when I arrived in Perth, this was a chat we had and I somehow convinced him to stay for that pink ball Test,” reveals Rohit.
Rohit Sharma press conference: On Ashwin, Gabba draw and his form
In the lone outing with the ball, the offie sent down 18 overs and returned with the solitary wicket of Mitchell Marsh. There was a handy contribution with the bat in the first innings, too, but not many would have guessed that this was going to be his last appearance for the Indian cricket team.
Who would have thought that the kitbag which landed on Australian soil in Perth would be doing a mid-series re-route from Brisbane to Chennai, instead of Brisbane-Melbourne-Sydney-Chennai.
In a snap of a finger, the professor of spin bowling, one of India’s greatest match-winners in Tests, the quintessential team man and an asset for every captain left with a question on every lip: Why now?
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