On Wednesday, the veteran Indian spinner, Ravichandran Ashwin expressed his delight in two words, “Happiness and gratitude” after being included in India’s T20 World Cup squad, his first white-ball selection since 2017. The 34-year-old, who is currently in the UK with the Test squad that is playing against England in an ongoing five-match series, wrote a Twitter post to express his joy.

Ravichandran Ashwin tweeted, “Every tunnel has light at the end of it but only those in the tunnel who believe in the light will live to see it. I wrote this quote down a million times in my diary before putting this up on the wall! Quotes that we read and admire have more power when we internalise them and apply in life.”

2017: I wrote this quote down a million times in my diary before putting this up on the wall! Quotes that we read and admire have more power when we internalise them and apply in life.

Happiness and gratitude are the only 2 words that define me now.🙏 #t20worldcup2021 pic.twitter.com/O0L3y6OBLl

— Mask up and take your vaccine🙏🙏🇮🇳 (@ashwinravi99) September 8, 2021

Despite taking more than 400 Test wickets to his name, Ravichandran Ashwin has not been played in the ongoing 5-match Test series leading to speculation about the reasons. He was expected to be selected for the Lord’s Test but a sudden change in weather resulted in Ishant Sharma being preferred.

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The Indian skipper, Virat Kohli hasn’t been able to clearly explain Ashwin’s exclusion and there have been murmurs of tension building up in the Indian camp because of it.

Ravichandran Ashwin played his last limited-overs game during a tour of the West Indies and he has 52 wickets from 46 T20I outings in his career. He has been rewarded for his consistent performances in the recent editions of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

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Here is the full India squad: Virat Kohli (captain), Rohit Sharma (vice-captain), KL Rahul, Suryakumar Yadav, Rishabh Pant (wicketkeeper), Ishan Kishan (wicketkeeper), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Rahul Chahar, Ravichandran Ashwin, Axar Patel, Varun Chakravarthy, Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohd Shami.

Standby players: Shreyas Iyer, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar.