'Told my wife that Australia series could become my last': Ashwin's heartbreaking admission in wake of WTC final snub

Speaking in an interview a week after that WTC final call by Indian team management, Ashwin opened up on his knee injury during the Bangladesh Test series.

The World Test Championship snub was a significant blow to Ravichandran Ashwin's illustrious Test career. Despite 474 Test wickets, among top-10 in the world, in a career spanning over a decade and while being the No.1 ranked ICC Test bowler, Ashwin was dropped to make way for an extra seamer by India against Australia in the final which they eventually lost by 209 runs. Yet it wasn't the point that left Ashwin contemplating on his future. It was little less than a year ago when he felt that his time as a professional cricketer has come to an end, an admission which he even made to his wife Prithi Narayanan.

R Ashwin makes a revelation on his knee injury

Speaking to Indian Express in an interview a week after that WTC final call by Indian team management, Ashwin opened up on his knee injury which he incurred during the Bangladesh Test series last year. Post the tour, he told his wife that probably the Border-Gavaskar series in February 2023 would be his last and added that he would want to change his bowling action a bit as his old technique led to his injury.

“I’m very proud of what I’ve done in my life not just because of wickets or runs. But how consistently I have been to able to reinvent myself. One thing that really plagues cricketers or anybody as they grow old is insecurity. For me, it’s how cricketers get locked when they get older and when they get experienced; you want to hold on to something so tight, that you eventually end up breaking your own neck,” he said.

“When I came back from Bangladesh, I told my wife that the Australia series could become my last series. I used to have some knee issues. I told I am going to change my action because it really got a lot of momentum and with that when I was landing, my knee was buckling a little bit. I hadn’t done enough workload because of the T20 World Cup but I was not just not happy with the way the ball was coming, it was just scrambling a little bit here.”

The veteran off-spinner further revealed that by the second Test match in Bangladesh his knee had swollen up. And while he contemplated his thought at changing his bowling action, which he initially brushed aside as "stupid and ridiculous thing to do", Ashwin went to NCA after the tour, took an injection and worked on his new action before heading to Nagpur for the Australia series opener.

“By the second Test (in Bangladesh) it started to pain. It was really swelling up. So just thinking okay, how do I do this? Because I bowled really well for three-four years, right? To change my action, it’s got to be the most stupid and ridiculous thing to do. So I came back and said, listen, there’s a lot of load on the knee, it’s time to change and I’m going to go back to my action that used to bowl in 2013-14,” he added.

"So I went to Bangalore, I had to take an injection at that point in time, so, I changed my action. I started bowling and my knee pain went away. I practised for three-four days in Nagpur and I went into the Test match without having played a game with that action at all. On the first day of the Test, I didn’t even feel like a bowler for three to four overs but I was able to get on with it because of the awareness I have.

And I am proud of the Player of the Series award. I think that is probably one of the best series I have had and the best bowling performance for me in a series in the last four-five years. I have done a lot of good stuff in the last five years, but still, it felt like that. Looking back, I feel so proud of having done that at 36. If I can change my action and put my career at stake, I don’t think there can be a greater challenge in life. A lot of people tend to get insecure. They don’t want to do something else and fail. It is very easy for me to play another four tests with the same action, maybe pick up 15, or 16 wickets, and not feel good about myself."