R Ashwin who recently announced his retirement from international cricket, remembered a moment from India’s clash against Pakistan during the 2022 T20 World Cup. He spoke about India’s former coach Rahul Dravid. Speaking on the Sky Cricket Podcast, Ashwin recalled the moment when he made Dravid exult with his ability to think on his feet as well.

“I hadn’t realized what I had done. I came back into the dressing room and I haven’t seen Rahul Dravid exult like that — I mean the second time I saw him exult was after the T20 World Cup, which we won recently. Until this moment, I hadn’t seen him exult,” Ashwin said (via The Indian Express).

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“He (Dravid) came to me and said, ‘That’s why we had you in the squad! That’s the way you deal with this!” I didn’t quite honestly realise the magnitude of what that moment meant. I just saw the ball, and just let it go. Then it hit Rizwan and came back. I think Virat was almost celebrating. He just used his hand to say who the hell leaves a ball like that,” he further added.

He also credited his gully cricket skills for helping him decide to let the ball went, which proved to be a smart call eventually as well.

“For me, gully cricket’s a huge part of my life. Even very late, probably middle of my career, I was still playing gully cricket with my friends. It brought about a happiness that I don’t think I’ve encountered anywhere else in the world. Leaving a ball on the leg side is a crucial factor for us to get a free hit because all our games they have offside runs,” he said in the same discussion.”So it is very nearly about bowling underarm into your legs since you can’t score runs on legside. So the moment you have a ball down the legside, it’s very natural for me to just flick open my hips and leave that ball. Most people would say I spent midnight oil on that, to be able to leave that ball which is not the case,” R Ashwin concluded.