Ravichandran Ashwin and his former India teammate Suresh Raina had a live Instagram session on Friday evening. And, the duo recalled some cherishing memories while they used to play together for Team India and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in IPL.
During the interaction, Ashwin narrated how the veteran stumper MS Dhoni helped him to dismiss Jonathan Trott during the ICC Champions Trophy 2013 final, in which India defeated England by a narrow margin of 5 runs to lift the coveted title.
Trott was batting on 20 before Ashwin got him stumped, courtesy Dhoni’s lightning-quick hands behind the wickets.
“Trott got stumped off the first over that I bowled. I still remember Mahi bhai came up to me and said ‘Trott ko over the stump se mat daalna, sirf round se daalna. Woh leg side mein khelne jaayega, agar ball ghoomega to stumping ho jaayega’. Mujhe abhi bhi dimag mai nahi chal raha hai ki kaise bola waist,” Ashwin told Raina.
CT 2013 final pic.twitter.com/hoyTKQDk0e
— Vaathi (@batspeed145kph) April 25, 2020
Coming to the Champions Trophy 2013 final, it was a rain-curtailed 20-over per side game at Edgbaston in Birmingham.
Asked to bat first, India posted 129/7 on the board thanks to Virat Kohli’s 34-ball 43 and Ravindra Jadeja’s unbeaten 33 off 25 balls.
Defending the total, the Men in Blue rode on superb spells from Ashwin (2/15), Jadeja (2/24) and Ishant Sharma (2/36) to restrict England to 124/8. Eoin Morgan was top-scorer for the hosts with 30-ball 33.
Raina engages with Ashwin amid lockdown
Also, during the live session, Raina said to Ashwin that’s his powerplay bowling average was quite good that always used to be below six. As per him, the off-spinner used to get crucial breakthroughs for the team due to which Dhoni believed in him. The southpaw also added that Dhoni had told all the batsmen in the team to play Ashwin carefully as his carrom balls were simply unplayable and very difficult to pick for any batter across the world.
“If you see your powerplay bowling average, it has always been below six, you have always provided us with breakthroughs that’s why MS believed in you. When you played for Pune and Punjab, I told my team to be careful against you as you had good carrom balls and they always used to trouble the batsmen,” Raina told Ashwin during the Instagram Live session.
Ashwin was all set to play for Delhi Capitals in IPL 2020. But, the BCCI had to suspend the tournament for an indefinite period due to coronavirus pandemic. This was going to be the first season of Ashwin for Delhi-based franchise as Kings XI Punjab traded him before the players’ auction in 2019.
