Cricket News

‘This guy better not come to India’ – Ravichandran Ashwin draws light on verbal duel with Tim Paine

The Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2020-21 is cherished by Indian fans even today. It saw a depleted Indian side go on and beat Australia in Australia. The fact that they won the series despite all the odds being stacked against them came as an absolute icing over the cake.

It is to be noted that India were bundled for 36 in the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2020-21 and thus, lost it. However, they still managed to win the series by 2-1. The third Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground turned out to be a draw as Ravichandran Ashwin and Hanuma Vihari showed a lot of grit and determination, and ensured that they didn’t throw their wickets. Thus, they saved the game.

However, Ashwin and the then Australian captain Tim Paine indulged in a verbal duel during the last session of the Test. While the keeper-batter started to sledge the offie, Ashwin then gave a befitting reply to him. During the trailer launch of Voot Select’s web series “Bandon Mein Tha Dum”, Ashwin revealed the reason for the same. It is to be noted the bowling all-rounder told Paine that if he comes to India, then that would be his last series.

“I think Vihari will remember why I said that as well. Because we had a discussion on the way Tim Paine was batting through the series. I kept telling these guys and we got a very different sort of a short leg position, which was forward short leg and then we usually have a leg slip. We had a chat… Rahane, myself, Vihari and we said, ‘Pujara will generally stand at leg slip but this guy won’t stand with the helmet. Let’s put him somewhere else and get this guy under the lid’,” said Ashwin.

“We had this conversation and parked him there in a very awkward position and he (Paine) actually nicked off there. We had a celebration and I told Vihari, ‘This guy better not come to India. If he actually comes to India, he will be going there every single time. At the end of the day, he was having a go at us when we were batting and it just came out of my mind because we had a conversation like that. It was very instantaneous,” he added.