India spinner Ravichandran Ashwin is certainly considered as one of the modern greats of the game and he recently revealed a reason why he wasn’t part of playing X1 on his official Youtube Channel.
Ashwin who has clinched more than 400+ wickets in 79 test matches he has played so far for Men in Blue and he was also India’s highest wicket-taker in the recently concluded cycle of the World Test Championship.
Kohli was questioned by social media users that why he didn’t include Ashwin in their playing X1 at Lords who is certainly the second-best spinner produced by India in terms of clinching wickets trailing behind 619 wickets taken by legendary Anil Kumble.
Ashwin revealed that day before every expert was stating that it will be warmer and drier ahead of the start of the game but on the matchday, it started raining then team management decided to go for the option of playing four-seamers.
“The funny thing was, before the match, they were like, ‘There’s a heatwave. You please be ready mate. You might play.’ Upon coming to breakfast in the morning, rains started lashing out. I asked, ‘Won’t you tell about heatwave after it came? Why gave me hope only for it to end in disappointment!’,” Ashwin said.
Ashwin is currently ranked number 2nd in ICC Test bowler rankings has been in form of his life in last few months. In the World Test Championship as well, the spinner provided important breakthroughs for the team and thus was expected to be featured in the playing XI against England.
India and England are currently playing five-match series with India leading the series by 1-0 at the moment and the third one is all set to start from August 25th 2021 at Leeds.
Taking about last match held at Lords, England were favorites to win that match but their tactical mistakes in first session enabled India to take an assemble lead of 271 runs and Indian bowlers ensured that England don’t surpass more than 120 runs the nail bitting contest by 151 runs.
