RAshwin is perhaps one of the best spinners in the world, and is no less in stature than the previous greats of the game. Recently though, Ashwin was targetted by Sanjay Manjrekar, as the latter went on to say that he isn’t ‘an all-time great player’. Now former Pakistan spinner Saeed Ajmal has come up with a rather controversial statement.
He said that Ashwin was deliberately kept away from the game for sometime, so that he is not banned by the ICC. It is noteworthy that Ajmal was banned multiple time by the ICC due to his illegal bowling action.
“You changed all these rules and regulations without asking anyone. I was playing cricket for the last eight years. All those rules were for me. That’s it. During that period, Ashwin was out from cricket for six months. Why is that? So you can work on him and your bowler doesn’t get banned. They don’t care if a Pakistan bowler gets banned. They only care about money,” Ajmal told as quoted by Cricwick.
Ajmal also went on to talk about the 2011 World Cup semifinal between India and Pakistan which India had won comprehensively. Pertaining to that match, he said that even though Sachin Tendulkar was out LBW, the DRS saved him.
“The umpire who gave Tendulkar out, he would be ready to give the statement that he got it right. And the meaning is pretty clear. The DRS can be checked manually. You can alter it any stage. I don’t know about that but even if I see it now and any umpire sees that, he will think that this will go on to hit the stumps. But that missed the stumps. Thousands of people have questioned me this, and I don’t know the answer.”
