Ravichandran Ashwin defends management''s decision to rest Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma in WI ODIs

The decision to rest Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma in the last two ODIs against West Indies has drawn a lot of flak, but Ravichandran Ashwin defended the team management’s call saying critics were finding fault for the sake of it.

The social media and a few former cricketers had voiced displeasure in keeping Kohli and Rohit on the benches in the year of the 50-over World Cup.

"So many players are recovering at the NCA. (Jasprit) Bumrah is back after a long break. Prasidh Krishna also made a return after an injury break. It seems that people are faulting team management just for the sake of it,” said Ashwin on his YouTube channel.

The senior spinner said victory cannot be taken for granted in international cricket.

'Some (people) were shocked': R Ashwin 

"Some (people) were shocked because we lost to a team that didn't qualify for the World Cup. Many people think that India’s only job in international cricket is to win the World Cup. People think India are favourites to win the World Cup because of the IPL,” Ashwin said.

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Even though India lost the second ODI against the Windies, they managed to register a 2-1 series win eventually.

England has taken the cricketing world by storm while playing the aggressive ‘Bazball’ brand of game.

However, Ashwin said it will be tough to see India adopting such tactics considering the team has embraced a period of transition.

“We are playing Test cricket really well. But we will go through a transition very soon, and things won’t be easy during that phase,” he said.

Ashwin also cited the difference in sporting culture in India and England as another reason for the former not going the ‘Bazball’ way.

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"Let us assume India is adopting Bazball… and assume a player throws his bat at everything like Harry Brook and gets out and we lose two Test matches. What will we do? Will we back the Bazball and the players? We will drop at least four players from our playing XI.” “That’s how our culture has always been. It works for them (England) because their management is fully in sync with this style of play, their selectors back the players to play this way.” “In fact, even their crowd and Test match-watching public are backing the team in this process. But we can’t do this,” the ace spinner said.

The ICC World Cup 2023 will be held in India across October and November and Ashwin appealed to fans to support the team, and stay away from negativity.

"Winning a world cup is not easy...just because we play a certain player or drop a certain player, we can't win. All of us are hindsight kings. Hindsight doesn't work here.” “We have qualified for the semifinals of almost all major tournaments but on that day, we have not been good enough. Let us send them (to the WC) with a lot of positivity,” he said.

While talking about the Ashes series which saw England bouncing back from 0-2 to level the series 2-2, Ashwin said Australia might have been hindered by the injury-enforced absence of veteran spinner Nathan Lyon.