It was a massive surprise when India decided to go into the World Test Championship (WTC) final 2023 against Australia without Ravichandran Ashwin. The No 1 ICC Test bowler has 474 wickets in 92 Tests but India felt it would be better to play an extra seamer in the side.
The decision backfired however as India lost the WTC final by 209 runs.
Now in an interview with Indian Express, the veteran off-spinner has spoken about his exclusion, and in the same interview, he opened up on the knee injury that he suffered during the Bangladesh series last year. Ashwin after the series had told his wife Prithi Narayanan that the Border-Gavaskar series in February 2023 could probably be his last.
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“I’m very proud of what I’ve done in my life not just because of wickets or runs. But how consistently I have been to able to reinvent myself. One thing that really plagues cricketers or anybody as they grow old is insecurity. For me, it’s how cricketers get locked when they get older and when they get experienced; you want to hold on to something so tight, that you eventually end up breaking your own neck,” he said.
“When I came back from Bangladesh, I told my wife that the Australia series could become my last series. I used to have some knee issues. I told I am going to change my action because it really got a lot of momentum and with that when I was landing, my knee was buckling a little bit. I hadn’t done enough workload because of the T20 World Cup but I was not just not happy with the way the ball was coming, it was just scrambling a little bit here.”
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Ashwin revealed that his knees had swollen up on the Bangladesh tour and he decided to change his bowling action after returning to India.
“By the second Test (in Bangladesh) it started to pain. It was really swelling up. So just thinking okay, how do I do this? Because I bowled really well for three-four years, right? To change my action, it’s got to be the most stupid and ridiculous thing to do. So I came back and said, listen, there’s a lot of load on the knee, it’s time to change and I’m going to go back to my action that used to bowl in 2013-14,” he added.
“So I went to Bangalore, I had to take an injection at that point in time, so, I changed my action. I started bowling and my knee pain went away. I practised for three-four days in Nagpur and I went into the Test match without having played a game with that action at all. On the first day of the Test, I didn’t even feel like a bowler for three to four overs but I was able to get on with it because of the awareness I have.
“And I am proud of the Player of the Series award. I think that is probably one of the best series I have had and the best bowling performance for me in a series in the last four-five years. I have done a lot of good stuff in the last five years, but still, it felt like that. Looking back, I feel so proud of having done that at 36. If I can change my action and put my career at stake, I don’t think there can be a greater challenge in life. A lot of people tend to get insecure. They don’t want to do something else and fail. It is very easy for me to play another four tests with the same action, maybe pick up 15, or 16 wickets, and not feel good about myself.”
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