Ravichandran Ashwin is open on the left delivery of Mohammad Nawaz© Twitter
Virat Kohli was undoubtedly the hero for the Indian team, but Ravichandran Ashwin’s performance on the last two balls under pressure also deserves a lot of applause. Ashwin walked to lead when India needed 2 runs from 1 ball. Rather than try something dramatic, he decided to let Mohammad Nawaz throw the ball, helping India earn an extra run-up next to wide. In a video shared to BCCI.TV, Ashwin made a cheeky remark about his retirement as he pondered ‘what if that Nawaz ball was flipped’.
The Indo-Pak match turned out to be a nail-biter that saw many twists and turns in the game. With India taking 16 runs to win from the last 6 balls, Pakistan needed a big performance from Mohammad Nawaz. The spinner could have won the match for Pakistan had he not thrown a no-ball.
Despite the no-ball and subsequent free-hit, Nawaz made a strong comeback by knocking out Dinesh Karthik on the penultimate ball from the over. However, the pressure got him on what should have been the final throw, but Ashwin showed his presence of mind by letting the ball go for a wide.
Speaking about the incident to BCCI.tv, Ashwin said: “Someone asked me if that Nawaz ball had spun and hit you on the pads, what would you have done? I said I would have rushed to the locker room, picked up my Twitter and said, ‘Thank you for all the great times I’ve had it in my cricket career. It was a wonderful journey (laughs)’.”
promoted
Ashwin kept his composure on the last ball of the game. He hit the ball over the midfielder when India singled to successfully complete the run-chase.
The off-spinner’s feat with the bat has been praised by many on social media. Even Virat Kohli said Ashwin used “Dimag ke upar extra dimag” when he let the Nawaz ball go wide. It’s probably because of this maturity that Ashwin was preferred over Yuzvendra Chahal in the high-pressure match.
Topics mentioned in this article