India won the Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) 2023, by a margin of 2-1. Men in Blue with that result in BGT including New Zealand’s recent test match win against Sri Lanka, team India reached the World Test Championship (WTC) Final.
But the BGT test series can be divided into two parts, first, when India was looking harmless till the Second game at Delhi and then for the last two fixtures, in the third Test at Indore, visitors won the game by nine wickets, while last game at Ahmedabad got drawn. Ravichandran Ashwin made a vlog on YouTube ‘how to play spin’ before Indore Test, and fans criticised him after the home side lost the game.
Indian ace spinner reveals the attack he received after Indore Test-
“Let me get to the fun part now. I did a review video of the Delhi Test. Our admin gave a thumbnail for that video: How to bat against spin in India,”
“After seeing that thumbnail, I thought to myself how will I tell how to play against spin? But there was a couple of points that I did mention in that video. That you should trust your defence while playing spin. ‘Follow your process, trust your defence’. All these are basic things,” said R. Ashwin.
Ashwin finished the series with 25 wickets and was adjudged the Player of the Series. In the last rankings released by the ICC, he was the joint top-ranked Test bowler in the world alongside England’s pace spearhead James Anderson.
“But the beauty here is that once we lost in Indore, everyone started commenting on that video. ‘Since you taught them how to play against spin in India, we lost the Indore Test. You were the reason for our own downfall’. These were some of the comments. I found it really funny,” he further added.
The 36-year-old was the star performer for India in the 1st innings of the Ahmedabad Test, as he picked up 6 wickets. Ashwin surpassed Anil Kumble’s tally of the highest wicket-taker in the BGT. Ashwin has been India’s go-to man in the series and picked up crucial wickets for India.
“We have Rahul David who has played for so many years and did his coaching in NCA before coming here. Likewise with Andrew McDonald for the Australian team. The narrative changed completely as if the Australians saw one YouTube video and learned how to play spin,”
“I found it very funny and also was very proud of myself. I was like how good I should have been that I coached an entire cricket team in a single video and made them win a Test match. I was feeling very happy and proud,” stated the ace Indian spinner.
Rohit Sharma-led side lost the Indore Test by nine wickets, after getting dismissed for 109 and 163 mark in both innings of the third test match. Nathan Lyon picked his fourth overall and first 10-wicket haul in India at Indore Test.
“But the very next day, the admin changed the heading to Delhi Test review due to intense pressure in the comments section. I asked him, ‘You changed the heading, okay. But do you really think they saw our video and learned how to play spin? Especially, after watching our Tamil video?’ Of course, we did have subtitles for them to understand. And moreover, what did I tell in that video for them to learn how to play spin,” concluded Ashwin about his Youtube video controversy.
Now, India vs Australia (IND VS AUS) in 50 over format, both teams will clash against each other for the ODI series, the first game out of three matches is starting on March 17 at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. After that, both teams will meet again each other in the WTC Final on June 7 in England.