Mumbai: India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin seems to be an easy target of former cricketers these days. After Sanjay Manjrekar’s statement on the India spinner, who said that he is not yet ‘an all-time great player’, former Pakistan off-spinner Saeed Ajmal has taken a dig at Ashwin. Ajmal stated that Ashwin was intentionally kept away from cricket to avoid getting banned by the International Cricket Council for his faults.
Ajmal, himself had a terrible history in cricket for always getting called out by the International Cricket Council (ICC) for his illegal action during his time with the Pakistan team from 2008 to 2015. He was banned by the ICC for his illegal bowling action quite a few times.
“You changed all these rules and regulations without anyone asking. I have been playing cricket for the last eight years. All those rules were only for me. That’s it,” Ajmal was quoted saying to Cricwick.
“During that period, Ashwin was out from cricket for six months. Why is that? So you can work on him and your bowler doesn’t get banned. They don’t care if a Pakistan bowler gets banned. They only care about money,” he added.
Ashwin, who made his international debut in 2010, is currently a vital cog in India’s spin attack. Considered as one of the best spinners in the world at the moment, he has over 600 wickets to his name across all formats and is presently India’s fourth-highest wicket-taker in Tests with 409 scalps to his name in 78 Tests.
He was India’s second-most successful bowler in the Test series, with 12 wickets, against Australia. Eventually, the senior off-spinner is only nine wickets away from overtaking Harbhajan Singh’s long hold third spot of highest Test wicket-takers for India.
Ashwin will be next seen in action in the upcoming World Test Championship (WTC) final between India and New Zealand from June 18 in Southampton. The senior offspinner can prove to be a powerful asset for team India against New Zealand. In Test cricket, he is the only bowler who has dismissed the southpaws more than 200 times.
