There were a lot of questions that everyone had in their mind when one of India’s legendary bowlers, Ravichandran Ashwin, announced his retirement. He announced his retirement on 18th December 2024 in the ongoing India-Australia test series. Just two months (August) back, he also announced he won’t be playing the Indian Premier League.
Ravichandran Ashwin has a total of 537 wickets for India in the test format. He played just 106 matches. Ravichandran Ashwin is also the second-highest taker for India in the test cricket format. He has played 116 ODIs for India, in which he has taken 156 wickets. Apart from this, Ravichandran Ashwin has played 65 T20Is for India and taken 72 wickets in that format.
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“They wanted me to play more” Ravichandran Ashwin on his retirement
Surely, it came as a shock to a lot of fans when he suddenly announced his retirement from test cricket. The series was 1-1 after three matches when Ravichandran Ashwin, through a press conference, announced he would not be playing international cricket anymore for India. His last test match was the second test, which Australia won.
No one told me that you should go, no one told me that there is no place for you in the team. Actually before I took the decision 2-3 people told me not to take it but I took my decision. In fact, they wanted me to play more
Rohit Sharma (the then captain) also told me to think about it, Gauti bhai (Gautam Gambhir) also told me to think again. But I didn’t talk much about it (retirement) with Ajit Agarkar
The decision is very personal when it comes to retirement. These are all very individual decisions
There were a lot of rumors that stated that the team management asked Ravichandran Ashwin to retire. He came and cleared everything and said no one asked him to retire. His teammates insisted that he continue and play for India, but he had his personal reasons. He first shared with Rohit Sharma, who was leading the side, and later with Gautam Gambhir, who was India’s coach. Both of them asked Ashwin about his certainty of retiring, and if not, then he should think about it again.
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Some things in life are surely more than sports, and the sportsmen have the right to decide their future. It was fair for Ravichandran Ashwin to think about it as he felt that would have been the best time for him to hang up his boots.
