New Delhi, Still unable to wrap his head around R Ashwin’s quick exit from international cricket, an incredulous World Cup captain Kapil Dev feels the number-one off-spinner deserves to be farewelled, perhaps at home.
Ashwin shocked everyone when he quit Wednesday, immediately after the Brisbane Test against Australia went to a draw.
Kapil thought he didn’t like something.
“I was amazed that one of the best cricketers in India retired from the game. The fan sigh was not uncommon but I felt a twinge of hurt on his face. He was sad, and that was sad. He was not deserving of such, a proper goodbye,” Kapil told PTI.
As always, Ashwin did his own thing as he retired in the middle of a crucial series. Kapil: I would like to hear the Tamil Nadu man’s story.
“He could have waited and retired on Indian soil, but why did Ashwin say it is all over. I would like to know his version. Give him that respect. He has scrimmaged 106 Test matches for the country. He is a giant of Indian cricket, no one can come anywhere close to him, I am not sure.”
Kapil also wanted the Board of Control of Cricket in India to hold a “great farewell” for Ashwin.
“The board of cricket in India, BCCI will surely organize a big send-off for this giant match-winner of Team India,” he said.
Kapil, 65, said Ashwin was a hero, a spinner who didn’t follow the pattern, always kept ripping at the ball with his change of speed and smears of line and length.
‘He was ready to test, and that’s what distinguished him. In a match where the batters are the star of the show, Ashwin did it.
“Ashwin was brave. He might bowl at any stage of the match. Do you find bowlers that are so adroit tactically who can respond fast? He was the man to call on when his captain couldn’t,” he said.
The man of cricket’s mind as well as off-field persona, Ashwin, Kapil said, was a match-winner like no other in modern cricket.
“He is the Indian Man of the Series winner with most titles. That’s a huge compliment and puts his game and form in perspective. He was no “yes” man and he was a rough warrior.
“He was one of those spinners who bowled with the new ball like Anil Kumble. Good God I didn’t have to play alongside him. I would have been the man against Ashwin.
“He could bat, bowl, field. He had the carrom ball, an excellent slow ball; and if you wanted, he had the leg-spinner as well. Amazing. He could be anything on the cricket field,” he said, in an obsequie of the man who took 537 Test wickets.
‘Nobody but the winner is not fucked up, and Ashwin was a winner. He’s made us very happy. I wish him all the happiness in the world,” he said.