One can count on R Ashwin to speak his mind, one Youtube post after another.
Now the prolific off-spinner has said that there was thought behind India resting Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma for the second one-dayer against West Indies. India lost that game and immediately there was criticism over the decision to rest the two senior stars. India, however, finished the series strong by winning the third and decisive ODI.
"So many players are recovering at the NCA (National Cricket Academy),” Ashwin said on his Youtube channel in the context of workload management. “(Jasprit) Bumrah is back after a long break. Prasidh Krishna also made a return after an injury break. It seems that people are faulting team management just for the sake of it.”
Advertisement
The 36-year-old with 489 and 151 Test wickets said that winning is something that cannot be taken for granted for any team, even a strong one like India.
"Some (people) were shocked because we lost to a team that didn't qualify for the World Cup. Many people think that India’s only job in international cricket is to win the World Cup. People think India are favourites to win the World Cup because of the IPL,” Ashwin said.
Ashwin said a concept like Bazball would not work in India as there would be knee-jerk reactions following a defeat instead of the continuation of the approach.
Advertisement
"Let us assume India is adopting Bazball… and assume a player throws his bat at everything like Harry Brook and gets out and we lose two Test matches. What will we do? Will we back the Bazball and the players? We will drop at least four players from our playing XI,” Ashwin said. “That’s how our culture has always been. It works for them (England) because their management is fully in sync with this style of play, their selectors back the players to play this way.”
“In fact, even their crowd and Test match-watching public are backing the team in this process. But we can’t do this,” Ashwin said.
Ashwin urged fans to back India and their methods instead of being negative.
“Winning a World Cup is not easy...just because we play a certain player or drop a certain player, we can't win. All of us are hindsight kings. Hindsight doesn't work here.”
“We have qualified for the semifinals of almost all major tournaments but on that day, we have not been good enough. Let us send them (to the WC) with a lot of positivity,” Ashwin said.
