• Source:JND
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India vs Australia News: When Indian veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin announced his retirement during the middle of the Border-Gavaskar trophy series, it came as a shock to Cricket fans around the world. Many wondered that Ashwin, who announced his retirement after the third Test, could have at least waited for the series to end. Amid several speculations, Ashwin has finally revealed that there were people in the team management who wanted him to play more and asked him to reconsider.

In a chat on his official YouTube channel, Ashwin clarified that no one forced him to retire as it was ultimately his own decision. In fact, the captain at that time, Rohit Sharma, and head coach Gautam Gambhir asked him to reconsider.

“No one told me that you should go; no one told me that there is no place for you in the team. Actually, before I took the decision, 2-3 people told me not to take it, but I took my decision. In fact, they wanted me to play more," Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.

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“Rohit Sharma (the then captain) also told me to think about it; Gauti bhai (Gautam Gambhir) also told me to think again. But I didn’t talk much about it (retirement) with Ajit Agarkar (chairman of selectors)."

“The decision is very personal when it comes to retirement. These are all very individual decisions," he added.

Ashwin has been a veteran of 106 Tests, 116 ODIs, and 65 T20Is in his 14-year career, picking up 537, 156, and 72 wickets, respectively. In his career, the 38-year-old has been part of the ODI World Cup campaign in 2011 and the ICC Champions Trophy in 2013, both of which came under MS Dhoni’s leadership.

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Ashwin criticised the Board of Control for Cricket in India's (BCCI) handling of batting bigwigs Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli and emphasised the importance of knowledge transfer (KT) in the management and the nation's cricket.

"I really hope the conversation has already taken place with Kohli and Rohit. But if it happened now, why didn't it happen during their retirement from T20Is in the World Cup last year? Had they been told then, they would have said, 'Okay, boss, do we want to play because this is what the team wants to take a direction and this is what the choices are?' But this leaves a lot of uninformed space, which leads to speculations. And there shouldn't be speculations. It should have been a straight conversation. If the communication is not clear and transparent, and if it is not done with a forward-looking vision, it leaves players in a very vulnerable position," Ashwin said.