Timing of R Ashwin's retirement raises questions

The regular Indian cricket fan may have wanted to wait till the conclusion of the Test series in Australia to admit into their system the news of retirement of a Test legend. For India had come out less scathed than expected in the most difficult phase of the series.

Perth, the Day-Nighter at Adelaide and the Gabba at Brisbane were covered with a 1-1 result and the most affable of Australian venues in Melbourne and Sydney awaited them.

But then some things don’t seem right within the Indian dressing room and it showed when R Ashwin came to announce his retirement on the last day in Brisbane.

Two points in his address to the media caught the eye – firstly, he said ‘there's a bit of punch left in me as a cricketer’ and then, he said, ‘I don't think I am in a position where I would be answering the questions in the right way’.

If there was punch, and he showed a bit of it in Adelaide, there was no reason that he should have quit during a series unless he was unhappy with the way he was being treated.

And if he had really decided to quit on his own, he should have been ready to face questions from the media unless he wants to divulge this on his Youtube channel and rake in views. Otherwise, it seemed like he had been asked by the team management to not entertain the media, who had travelled all the way to Australia and had every right to know what prompted this decision.

Even skipper Rohit Sharma went on to buttress it, saying, “Some decisions are very personal and I don't think too many questions should be asked or raised.”

There is no doubt that Ashwin had failed to pick a five-wicket haul or get a score of even 30 in the five Tests he played after the first Test against Bangladesh in Chennai when he took 6/88 in an innings and made 113 to save India the blushes.

His primary task isn’t batting and on the Adelaide surface with pink ball he wasn’t really expected to pick a fifer. But perhaps his failure to really trouble the New Zealand batsmen on spin-friendly pitches in the home series (he got nine wickets for 371 runs at an average of 41.22) and also his inability to score (he aggregated 51 runs at an average of 8.5) probably ended his status as the team’s No. 1 spinner.

At 38, he is old and was on the verge of retirement along with Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.

It appears he was told by the team management that he is not in the scheme of things and may not even get selected for the five-Test series in England, India’s first Test series in the 2025-27 World Test Championship cycle.

India don’t play a Test at home till October 2025 when they host West Indies and South Africa. Ashwin may have fancied wickets against both those teams but it seems that the team management told him that they want to move on.

Ideally, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) should think of moving on from Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli too and probably will do over the course of next few months.

But to announce retirement in the middle of a series is shocking and doesn’t reflect well on the team environment.

It should be remembered that MS Dhoni quit Test captaincy midway during the 2014-15 tour of Australia and the timing of that also surprised the fans.

Ashwin has taken 537 wickets in 106 Tests and ranks second behind Anil Kumble among Indian bowlers in the wickettakers' list. Kumble had 619 wickets but his retirement in 2008 saw him get carried on the shoulders of his teammates after his last Test in Delhi. Ashwin will get no such farewell.

Tags : R Ashwin, India cricket, Australia cricket, Brisbane, Gabba, Melbourne, Sydney, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli