Ravichandran Ashwin has starred for India on many occasions with the red ball. Recently in an interview, the Indian off-spinner recalled an incident from a 2017 Test match against Australia in Bangalore. Ravichandran Ashwin was moved by the gesture of captain Virat Kohli after he told him about his plan to dismiss Australia batsman David Warner.
“Virat was playing PlayStation with Saha and I went to his room and said, ‘Virat, I think what’s happening is Nathan Lyon got wickets in the first innings and the wicket was damp so somehow there is this sense of people coming in and saying that Lyon got wickets and hence Ash should get wickets and we’ll roll them over,” Ravichandran Ashwin told cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle in a show for Cricbuzz.
“But I want to be in my own cocoon, where I can take this game forward the way I want. I think I want to go over the wicket to David Warner even if it sounds defensive. We need to put this game on pause mode, literally pause this game without Australia wresting the initiative. And I think both Warner and Renshaw have practised a lot of balls for off-spinners coming from round the stumps. So I want to change this game,” Ashwin added.
After explaining his idea to trouble the Australian opener, Ashwin saw Kohli going back to play his game before expressing the word of “faith” for the off-spinner.
“He listened to my idea for a minute, started playing the game and said, ‘Do what you want, I have complete belief in you.’ And the next day I started bowling over the stumps,” Ashwin said.
“How David Warner got out in the first innings in Bangalore, where he got bowled – I moved over the stumps and started hitting the rough and he got bowled,” he explained.
Earlier, Kohli was doing an Instagram live session with spinner Ashwin and it was then that the Indian skipper was asked whether he sees the game-changing a lot when it resumes.
“Game-changing a lot? Man I do not know what is going to happen, it is so strange thinking even of practice sessions like instinctively you want to clap/hi-five, but you cannot do that, you will meet people after a long time, and you would have to fold hands and stay away,” Kohli told Ashwin during the interaction.
“I know it sounds strange, it might be a permanent feature until there is some sort of cure or vaccine that comes out, we will need to make that a part of our routine,” he added.
