As fans all across India come to terms with Ravichandran Ashwin’s retirement, the team’s former head coach Ravi Shastri has paid a beautiful tribute to the spinner. Shastri, who worked with Ashwin in close quarters, lauded the veteran spinner’s willingness to keep up with the time and reinvent himself as per the requirements of the game. Ashwin stopped being a traditional off-spinner long ago, moulding himself into different shapes depending upon the format he played, the surface he bowled on, or the opponent he came up against.
With Ashwin no longer a part of international cricket, Shastri feels what made the Tamil Nadu-born spinner stand out was the effort he put in to keep reinventing himself.
“I think what stands out for me was his wanting to evolve all the time. He wasn’t the kind of guy satisfied as to where he started,” Shastri told ICC Review.
“He wanted new tricks to be learned. He pursued it, practiced hard at it, and continued to look for new things as his career progressed, to keep up with the times,” he added.
Shastri also expressed his admiration for the way Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja formed a pairing in the Indian Test team, especially in subcontinent conditions.
“And for him to do it in his span and the way he has done it, especially when it came to bowling in the last four or five years, I think in India, along with (Ravindra) Jadeja, I think they were a terrific pair, the real spin twins,” Shastri said.
“They complemented each other well, and they spurred each other on, you know, so I would say a lot of Jadeja’s wickets in the last, you know, five-six years have come because of Ashwin and vice-versa,” Shastri said.
“For me, it was his guile, wanting to excel in his craft and (especially) in the last two-three years, the way he got the ball to the way, gave it a rip, and got it to dip on the batsman with drift made him stand out,” Shastri said.
“And you look at his record against right-handers, against left-handers, it’s pretty much similar, you know, which says it all. It didn’t matter to him who he was bowling against. You know, he was up for it,” he added.
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