Former Indian bowling coach Bharat Arun said that Washington Sundar’s selection in Perth forced Ravichandran Ashwin to retire midway through the recently concluded Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Ashwin also made a shocking retirement announcement right after the drawn third Test in Brisbane as well. However, he played only the second Test in Adelaide with Sundar and Ravindra Jadeja playing the first and third Tests.

Speaking about Ashwin’s retirement on former Indian batter Subramaniam Badrinath’s YouTube channel, Bharat Arun said [via Cricket.com]: “In the very first Test of the tour, a big star like Ravichandran Ashwin was snubbed for a youngster like Washington Sundar. That would certainly have hurt him. In the past, Ravindra Jadeja played ahead of Ashwin a lot in overseas tours but I don’t think Ashwin was affected by that. But I feel that this time around, he might have been hurt by being pushed behind Sundar in the pecking order.”

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However, India went with two spinners, Sundar and Jadeja, in the playing XI for the final two Test matches in Melbourne and Sydney. Yet, they faced a 1-3 series defeat to surrender the Border-Gavaskar Trophy as well. Bharat Arun also feels Ravichandran Ashwin would have continued if he started as the primary spinner in Australia and he was dropped after a couple of poor performances as well.

“Jadeja was slightly ahead of Ashwin on batting, and he was a left-hander as well. I myself have, at times, personally explained to Ashwin the reason for picking Jadeja over him. Ashwin took it [the reasoning] very well, too. But here, after having played so much top-level cricket, the tour got off to a false start for him. I think he would have been fine had they dropped him after two consecutive failures,” concluded Bharat Arun. “But they dropped him for the very first Test, then played him in a pink-ball Test, and then dropped him again for the third Test. After this sequence of events, Ashwin might have thought to himself that it’s best to move on.”