Former India off-spinner R Ashwin had received some flak and courted controversy when a video he released on his YouTube channel coincided with Australia’s stunning win in the Indore Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in 2023.
After deflating the Aussies in Nagpur and decimating them to a 2-0 trail in Delhi, the Rahul Dravid-coach Indian side suffered a nine-wicket defeat at the Holkar Stadium, only days after Ashwin had released a video in his native Tamil language on ‘How to play spin in India’. While it was meant for educational purposes in the cricketing circles, fans and social media lashed out at the spin legend, even prompting the admins of his channel to replace the thumbnail of the video.
‘Dravid’s cheeky dig at Ash’
In his recent interaction on the ‘Kutti stories with Ash’ episode, Dravid himself took a cheeky dig at the multi-faceted Ashwin for ‘coaching’ Australia mid-series. “You even coached the Australian team. I got sent a clip. Unfortunately, it was in Tamil. So that’s the one I’ve seen about you. You’re speaking in Tamil, and with a little bit of Tamil that I understand, you’re coaching the Australian team in the middle of the Australian series, how to play spin. And I’m thinking, Ash, the series is not over,” the former India captain, leaving Ashwin in splits.
“If I knew how to do that, I would have told our boys how to play spin. I mean, why would I go and tell the Aussies?” clarified Ashwin.
Dravid admitted he was joking, to which Ashwin replied that the head coach had to bear the flak too. “The flak I got was ‘Ashwin is coaching better than you are — what are you doing?’” Dravid said as he continued the hilarious exchange.
‘Did Mitch Starc understand Tamil?’
Ashwin also revealed how he got to know that his messaging on tackling spin had lingered through the Aussie dressing-room through pacer Mitchell Starc. “An interesting thing was that (Mitchell) Starc came and told me. I mean, he bowled a bumper, and I just left it in the Indore Test match. I think we were 80 for 7 or something. We went for lunch, and he was walking with me. He was like, ‘Can I tell you how to play the bouncer like your YouTube video?’” Ashwin added.
Dravid couldn’t pass without another funny speculation. “It’s good to know that Starc knows Tamil. I think it was maybe the Australian guys got some Tamil guy to sort of,” said Dravid even as Ashwin suggested the subtitles on the video may have been a free giveaway.
