Indian star off spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has revealed that he was concerned about his retirement from the game in December 2022. After that the veteran has to change his bowling action to play for India.
Ashwin has been dealing with a persistent knee injury for quite some time. He revealed that the swelling in his knee increased during the second Test against Bangladesh. After that he made the difficult decision to change his bowling action which had given him a lots of wickets in his early stage of cricket career.
The RR spinner said,”When I came back from Bangladesh, I told my wife that the Australia series could become my last series,” Ashwin told The Indian Express. “I used to have some knee issues. I told [her] I am going to change my action because it really got a lot of momentum and with that when I was landing, my knee was buckling a little bit.”
He further added,”By the second Test (in Bangladesh) it started to pain. It was really swelling up,” the 36-year-old added. “So just thinking okay, how do I do this? Because I bowled really well for three-four years, right? To change my action, it’s got to be the most stupid and ridiculous thing to do. So I came back and said, Listen, there’s a lot of load on the knee, it’s time to change and I’m going to go back to my action that used to bowl in 2013-14.”
Ashwin revealed that he took an injection and practised for only three-four days ahead of the game against Australia.
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“On the first day of the Test, I didn’t even feel like a bowler for three to four overs but I was able to get on with it because of the awareness I have,” he said.
Even after the change in action, Ashwin grabbed 25 wickets in four matches for which he was adjudged as Player Of The Series.
