India vs England 2021: “One of the happiest phases of my career” – Ravichandran Ashwin says he wants to ‘keep improving’
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Ravichandran Ashwin‘s excellent form post the pandemic continued as he came up with yet another Man of the Series performance for India in the series against England. After a scintillating showing in Australia that saw him trouble even the best of batsmen including Steve Smith, the offie came into the series against England full of confidence and it showed as he bamboozled nearly every batter.
Ashwin picked up 32 wickets in the series and also notched up his 30th five-wicket-haul while also reaching the mark of 400 test wickets. Further, Ashwin’s Man of the Series award was the 8th in his career. No other Indian has more than 5. He is behind only Muttiah Muralitharan and Jacques Kallis who have 11 and 9 respectively. Ashwin addressed reporters after the end of the series in a virtual press conference and spoke about his state of mind.
Ravichandran Ashwin speaks after the match
Ravichandran Ashwin looked back on his growth as a cricketer and said, “My growth as a cricketer is a direct synonym to the person that I am. I want to keep on growing every single game, I want to keep evolving and I want to improve. That is something that is second nature to me and that is directly proportional to the kind of cricketer I am. I will continue to do that for the rest of my life, whatever I do in my life, I want to be the best I can be. This is one of the series where I was fortunate enough to stay in the moment a lot. It is one of the happiest phases of my career.”
Speaking about nearing Harbhajan Singh‘s tally of wickets, he said, “Harbhajan Singh is a fantastic bowler, he has achieved what he has achieved. I mean, there is a lot that I have learnt from him. This is a no-brainer, I have told this in the past also. I wasn’t even an off-spinner when Bhajji paa started playing for the Indian team. I was a batsman who could bowl a bit. He has been an inspiration because of the 2001 series against Australia. That is a famous series for India.”
Ashwin was also all praise for his fellow Tamil Nadu off-spinner Washington Sundar. “It is quite surprising because Washington bowled in some of the IPL franchises and he shot with them because of his bowling in the powerplay. It’s quite surprising that people don’t recognise that he grew up as a batsman all his life who could bowl. I am not surprised at all because I have batted with him. He works hard on his batting and we have discussions around how he should look to bowl more often. He loves his batting and he is quite a special batsman, I am not surprised at all,” Ashwin said.
Finally speaking about making it to the WTC final, “Reaching WTC final is a result of the kind of effort we have put in the last ten years now. The WTC was announced and we have fought really hard. We have played six-seven series, we have literally got most of the points, we lost about three Tests in the entire circle. Surprisingly enough, we had to go into this series and garner points to get to the finals. That is how it was positioned, with a lot of last-minute changes due to Covid-19. For a lot of players in our dressing room, it means a lot,” Ashwin signed off.
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Nevin Clinton
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