Ace India spinner R Ashwin has said that the feeling of winning the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2020-21 in Australia hasn’t sunk in yet for him, despite him playing a big role in India’s 2-1 triumph down under.
India had battled a lot of hurdles in that series as in the first Test in Adelaide, which they lost, they were bowled out for 36, their lowest score in Test matches. Then Virat Kohli flew back home to attend the birth of his first child, leaving Ajinkya Rahane at the helm of the affairs.
Rahane then helped India make a strong comeback in the second Test at Melbourne, scoring a century and helping India win the Test to level the series.
Rishabh Pant then kicked high gear as India almost chased down a daunting total in Sydney Test, only for an injured Hanuma Vihari and R Ashwin to fight off a ferocious Australian attack on the fifth day, to draw the Test.
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The series came to head at Brisbane, the fortress of the Australian team where they had not lost a Test since 1988. India was without Ravindra Jadeja, Hanuma Vihari, R Ashwin, and Jasprit Bumrah as all of them were injured.
Instead, India had a fairly new attack in Mohammed Siraj, Shardul Thakur, and T Natarajan. And Navdeep Saini, who got injured during the match and the batting was helmed by Shubman Gill, who had made his debut in MCG.
However, all of the Indian team came together as a unit and thanks to brilliant batting by Shubman Gill and then Rishabh Pant, chased down the 328-run target with 3 wickets in hand. India won the series 2-1, clinching their second consecutive Test series win in Australia.
Inspired by the character shown by the rookie players, the International Cricket Council (ICC) termed it the ‘Ultimate Test Series’.
And now famous victory will now be televised in a 4-episode show called ‘Bandon Mein Tha Dum’, which will be directed by renowned Neeraj Pandey, who had brought the life of MS Dhoni on the silver screen.
Speaking at the trailer launch, Ashwin revealed that the feeling of that victory hasn’t sunk in yet.
“It’s been almost two years now but it hasn’t sunk in yet. It’ll be unfair to say that it will sink in because it’s a very special feeling and every time even now once in a while if I go to sleep at night I get a dream of being in Australia and playing those games. So it is an unreal feeling and unexplainable,” Ashwin was quoted by IANS as saying.
Asked about the rivalry between the two sides, the veteran off-spinner praised Australia’s competitive nature, adding that the Indian side enjoys playing them despite knowing it won’t ever be easy against them.
“Absolutely, even if I’m looking back not only now right, from 2013 onwards, whenever we played Australia, they’ve been a very competitive side. They don’t turn up just like that, you know, expect things to go their way. They put in the effort and even the last series that Austin came to India in 2016-17, they went to Dubai, they were there for a month and practiced on wickets like what you get in India. And, when they came here they beat us in Pune,” he said.
“We played on a turner and they beat us by 333 runs. We got bowled out cheaply and came back into series again. In fact, if there was a documentary Australia could have made one on that. They played really well in that series. At Dharamsala as well, Virat was injured and was not playing that game. So, Australia is a fiercely competitive side and we enjoy playing them and we know it’ll never be easy against them,” he added.
(IANS inputs)
