Veteran India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin became the 14th Indian player to feature in 100 Tests. He achieved the feat during the side’s Dharamsala Test against England in the recently concluded five-match series. However, the veteran spinner recently opened up about how captain Rohit Sharma and the other team members gave him a guard of honour at the start of the match as well.
Sharing details of this, Ashwin said in his latest YouTube video: “Rohit’s guard of honour. He came to me and said, ‘Don’t get excited and go off in the first. We have planned something for you.’. Then he told me to take a walk around the dressing room and come, like surprising a small child. They had arranged a guard of honour, and I walked through that. It was a very interesting moment. All the boys standing there recognized and valued the moment.”
He further added, “I had requested a little backing up if I had a shortfall in terms of emotional balance or game intensity. But the affection and love like this, I’m not able to put into words. Starting 2-3 days before the match itself, whatever happened on the morning of match day, everything was overwhelming. I wasn’t able to gauge my mental space. Even though I didn’t have much emotional attachment to the 100th Test concept.”
However, Ravichandran Ashwin went through an emotional state during the England Test series. During the Rajkot Test, his mother fell ill and he had to rush back home. Thus he did not take the field on Day 3 and traveled to Chennai to meet his mother. But he returned the very next day and played the Test. He also disclosed that he wanted his father to be present at the venue on the opening day of his 100th Test. But, due to his mother’s health, his father couldn’t travel to Dharamsala.
“I told my uncle to travel with him (father). I actually hadn’t told him that I wanted to get the award from him. I know it would be a big moment in his life. Even he had spoken, as part of the tribute video the team made, about how this was a big moment in his life. I had a small disappointment when he couldn’t come in at the last minute. But I understood his perspective. If he came and fell sick or if my mom had some issues back home, then that would have disturbed me, and he didn’t want that. Even now, he asks me to bring every award or ball to him,” Ravichandran Ashwin concluded.
