A few hours before Ravichandran Ashwin pulled out of the Test squad for a family medical emergency, he ensured he gave a befitting reply to Alastair Cook’s claims that the India off-spinner ‘deliberately’ ran on the centre of the pitch to gain advantage at the time of bowling. During the 105th over of the Indian innings on Day 2, Ashwin tapped a ball from Rehan Ahmed and took off, not realising that he invertedly landed his feet on the danger area.
While it was clearly accidental and India were penalised five runs for Ashwin and Jadeja’s unfair play, the former England captain didn’t believe any of it and in fact accused the India spinner of doing it on purpose and questioned his gamesmanship with a touch of sarcasm. “Is it deliberate? Yes, it is. It’s a tactical ploy that you can disturb the middle of the wicket because Ashwin wanted as much help [as possible] when he bowls. That was gamesmanship there, wasn’t it?” Cook had said while doing commentary for TNT Sports.
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Ashwin, on being informed about what the England great had to say about him, dished out a gem only someone as witty and spontaneous as he could. The veteran India spinner replied saying that he had a word with the officials and reserved the same for Cook.
“They clearly warned some of our batters (on Thursday) for running on the pitch. I was aware of it, but my poor motor skills didn’t allow me to get off the pitch in time. If the English media and players think it was on purpose, it wasn’t,” Ashwin said during what could be his final press conference or interaction of any form in this series.
“If that’s how they want to treat it, so be it. I went to (on-field umpires) Joel (Wilson) and Kumar (Dharmasena) and said ‘that’s pure poor motor skills’. If I was any better, I would have been in the Olympics. Why play cricket?”
Ashwin was eager to bowl on Day 3
Before disaster struck, Ashwin was on cloud nine and understandably so. Earlier in the day, he had played a crucial knock of 39 with the bat as India’s lower-middle order put up a fight. Then, Ashwin, who was stranded on 499 wickets at the end of the previous Test in Visakhapatnam, picked up the all-elusive 500th when he dismissed opener Zak Crawley out LBW to become the second-fastest ever to the landmark.
In the end, Ashwin’s end to the series was an anti-climax of sorts as he rushed to Chennai to attend to his mother, as per BCCI vice-president Rajiv Shukla. While he was obviously glad to have achieved this rarest of rare feat for a Test bowler, Ashwin was looking forward to bowling on Day 3. “500 wickets done and dusted now, and we’ve got a game hanging in the balance,” he had said.
England were cruising along at 207/2 at stumps on Day 2 and Ashwin was eager to hit the ground running. Brought into the attack a bit late, Ashwin seemed excited at the idea of bowling to centurion Ben Duckett when he was yet to open his account and not when on 70. And considering Ashwin’s stellar record against the left-hander, it could have well panned out differently.
