Ravichandran Ashwin on Friday became the second Indian bowler after Anil Kumble to take 500 Test wickets during the third Test against England. He picked the wicket of Zak Crawley to achieve the feat on day 2 of the Test on February 16, 2024.
Ashwin is the second fastest bowler to 500 Test wickets in 98 Tests, behind Muttiah Muralitharan’s 87 matches. Ashwin took 25715 balls, next only to the legendary Glenn McGrath who required 25528 to reach the milestone.
The desire to excel and evolve has remained very intrinsic to Ravichandran Ashwin's core existence but between 2018 and 2019, the ace spinner felt that it was all over for him. Playing his 98th Test, Ashwin did speak about the darkest phase of his career when he felt that he was hitting a "bottomless pit".
"For me, life has been all about ups and downs, and for me, the lowest point was the phase between 2018 and 2019. I was the ICC Cricketer of the Year and I was on top of the world and from there to go to a bottomless pit, was a very dark time in my life," Ashwin told Kumble after the end of play on day two.
Ashwin said that was the phase when he really didn't know if he would ever be able to derive the joy of playing cricket. It was in 2018 when his abdominal injury prevented him from giving his best against England on a rank turner at Southampton, a Test India lost.
Then on the tour of Australia, Ashwin was hampered with form and injuries as didn’t play in the full series after bowling 86 overs in the Adelaide Test. His underperformance forced then-captain Virat Kohli to urge him to do "course correction".
"Generally I am not someone who is fazed by the downs of life because when I really have a good day, I just talk to my parents, and my wife watch good movie and go to sleep. When I am down, I am not really beaten and I do think about it and always come out on the other side of it.
But that was a dark tunnel for me as I didn't know what hit me and how I got placed there. And then I had a couple of injuries, adductor strain and it was a really dark phase and when I thought, I was almost done then," he revealed.
However, Ashwin said that the Covid pandemic and the lockdown gave him time to heal and rediscover his love for cricket.
IND v ENG 2024: Cricket fraternity congratulates R Ashwin for completing 500 Test wickets
"We were hit by the pandemic and it gave me a really good reflection of life and what I wanted to play for, find new meanings. This game is all I love and I think I had lost the love for that and I had to rediscover it,” he said.
Ashwin also admitted that reaching 500 Test wickets was a huge milestone.
"Look I would be lying if I say 500 doesn't mean anything. It does mean a lot but it has not sunk in yet but like I said, from 2020, the way I look at the game and the way my life has been is very different from what it was earlier. Sometimes playing becomes a job and you look at it as a profession and the moment it happens, then it can get monotonous and lonely. Rediscovering the joy of playing the game is the greatest unraveling of who I am," he said.
"The desire to excel hasn't changed and evolved as a cricketer has remained very organic to me and first question that hung in front of me was whether I was a good enough red ball bowler because I had come through IPL. More than people who teach you, I think the critics take you very high, if you want to take criticism in the right yards and make the right effort, I think excellence is the only way forward," he concluded.
(PTI inputs)
