Retired Hurt: Ravichandran Ashwin’s Bombshell In The Middle Of An Important Series

Mumbai: Team India managed to draw the third Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against Australia in Brisbane on Wednesday, with some gritty rearguard action and substantial help from the wet weather.

It was a great result for Rohit Sharma’s men as the series is tied at 1-1 ahead of the fourth and final Tests scheduled at Melbourne (from December 26) and Sydney (January 3), where India have traditionally done well.

But more than the analysis of the heavily rain-curtailed match dominated by Australia, it was the surprise retirement announcement of seniormost India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin that was the talking point.

He is not carrying an injury, neither is there any urgent family crisis back home that he has to attend to. Also, by his own admission, Ashwin has ‘a bit of punch’ left in him as a cricketer. So why did he announce his retirement in the middle of such an important series and decide to fly back to India the day after?

The 38-year-old off-spinner, India’s second-highest wicket taker with 537 scalps – behind Anil Kumble (619) – didn’t take questions from journalists at the press conference, but skipper Rohit Sharma faced a barrage of queries on Ashwin.

Saying that Ashwin was very sure about his decision to retire, Rohit revealed that he heard about the veteran’s plan to retire after arriving in Perth towards the end of the opening Test, having missed the match to be with his wife for the birth of their second child.

India decided to play one spinner in the Perth Test, and the thinktank comprising of coach Gautam Gambhir and stand-in captain Jasprit Bumrah opted for Washington Sundar – over senior spinners and proven matchwinners Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.

The decision shocked several cricket pundits, and Ashwin must have been devastated. Sundar did have a good home series against New Zealand, but Ashwin would surely have expected to be part of the playing XI. And if the team was looking for additional batting strength, Ashwin has 6 Test centuries under his belt with a decent average of 25.75.

“I heard this (Ashwin retirement talk) when I came to Perth. Obviously, I was not there for the first three or four days of the Test match, but this was on his mind since then. There are obviously a lot of things that went behind it; I’m pretty sure, Ash, when he went in position, will be able to answer that,” Rohit told reporters, adding that he “somehow convinced him to stay for that pink ball Test (in Adelaide).”

Unfortunately, India were trounced in that Test by 10 wickets. Like most players in the team, Ashwin didn’t have a great match – one wicket, and scores of 22 and 7.

When decision time came for the third Test, Rohit and the thinktank chucked Ashwin and brought Jadeja into the playing XI.

Giving a peep into Ashwin’s thought process, Rohit further said: “It just happened so that if you know where he felt that, ‘if I’m not needed right now in the series, I’m better off saying goodbye to the game’.”

With the Indian brainstrust unable to fit in two spinners in the playing XI and not sure about which of the three to pick, Ashwin realised there was no guarantee of him playing in the Melbourne and Sydney Test matches.

Rohit defended the team’s thinking. “Obviously, we’ve not been to Melbourne yet, so we don’t know what sort of conditions we expect there and what sort of combination… but just keeping Ash in mind, giving him that respect that if this is what he thinks, we should allow him to think that way and we should all stand by him.”

As the seniormost spinner in the team and the prolific wicket-taker that he is – brilliant strike rate of more than 5 per Test — Ashwin obviously expected to be picked as No. 1 spinner in the team. And if he was not to be played, he may have expected to be told about the team’s plans.

During the 2021 tour of England too, Ashwin had to sit out the Tests – under the Virat Kohli-Ravi Shastri regime — as Jadeja was the lone preferred spinner in the XI. There was a chorus demanding Ashwin’s inclusion after India lost a couple of Tests, but the team management stuck to its decision.

Ashwin must have felt a déjà vu in Australia this time.

It’s not often that a cricketer retires with immediate effect in the middle of a series. Experts like Sunil Gavaskar questioned the timing of his retirement.

But Ashwin would have felt, enough was enough.

We will have to wait for his detailed explanation of the decision he took, but it’s clearly a case of Ashwin – ‘retired hurt’.

He can’t be faulted for feeling insulted and didn’t want to prolong his mental agony when he’s pushing 40.