The euphoria of the Indian tour of Australia is still going strong as more and more untold stories and anecdotes are coming out from what is considered a successful tour for the Indian team. The Indian team won the test series 2-1 against all expectations despite suffering injuries and sledges on the field and being targeted racially during the second test at Sydney. One of the star performers of the tour was 34 year old off spinner Ravichandran Ashwin who had a great series with the ball. Ashwin not only was good with the ball but his rearguard action with Vihari which drew the game for India. While narrating an incident about the Melbourne test match Ashwin dwelled deeper into what debutant Shubman Gill told him during the second test and the mindset of the youngsters playing the game today came to light.
Ashwin reveals the conversation with Shubman Gill during the Boxing Day test
The Indian team came into the test after a mauling in the first test match at Adelaide and one of the fresh faces in the Indian team was Shubman Gill who replaced the misfiring Prithvi Shaw. India took a huge lead in the first innings courtesy a century from Captain Ajinkya Rahane, the Indian bowlers had the home team on the ropes with their bowling. The Australians though took a lead with not many wickets in the bank when Shubman Gill walked to Ashwin and said “I am a big fan of Shubman Gill’s batting. Even in the Melbourne Test, this is an incident I wanted to share. We were bowling and the wicket got flat. We were bowling to Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, and they were showing resistance. And Cameron Green was caught at square leg off a pull and Shubman came running to me and said, “Ash bhai, Jaldi khatam kar do yaar! 40-50 runs hoga toh mein paanch over mein khatam karoonga! (Please wrap up quickly. If its 40-50 runs to chase, I will do it in five overs!)
Ashwin mesmerized with the mentality of the new age players
The Indians had to chase a mere 70 runs and lost in the process with the wickets of Mayank Agarwal and Cheteshwar Pujara falling with 50 runs still to get, but Rahane and Gill made sure there were no further hiccups and led India to a 8 wicket win to square the series. Speaking about the new age cricketers and their fear no one mentality Ashwin said in his YouTube channel “I was like, ‘wow, this is unreal man’. We have a debutant who is walking up to say ‘khatam karo, finish it’ and I will finish in five overs and that too in a Test match”
Ashwin and Shubman Gill both will have a huge role to play with the English series up next as both will be expected to do well in their role as opener and lead Indian bowler and help India to win the series and keep the winning run going.