Ravichandran Ashwin has become just the 14th Indian to play 100 or more Tests in his career. Ashwin achieved the feat on Thursday when he took the field for India in the fifth and final match of the ongoing five-Test series against England in Dharamsala.
The BCCI marked the occasion with a short felicitation ceremony after the match toss.
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Legendary batter and current India head coach Rahul Dravid presented Ashwin with a memento. The ceremony was also attended by India Test squad, Ashwin’s wife and daughter.
Later on, as India players walked out to the field, they gave Ashwin a guard of honour.
Earlier in the series, Ashwin became the second Indian bowler after the legendary Anil Kumble to take 500 or more wickets in Test cricket. Overall, he’s just the 9th player and the fifth spinner in history to achieve the feat.
Interestingly, Ashwin started out as a top-order batter before trying his luck with medium-pace bowling and then finding success as an offspinner.
In a video shared by BCCI, the likes of Ravi Shastri and Anil Kumble paid rich tributes to Ashwin for hitting century of Tests.
“It’s not often, you can say that abou spinners but you knew very clearly, he (Ashwin) would be the next,” Shastri said. “The astronaut that he is and the wavelengths he gets onto, comes naturally to him and you can see the skill factors just getting better and better.”
Kumble, the leading wicket-taker in India’s Test history, lauded Ashwin for his ‘many’ match-winning efforts.
“The challenges are very extreme, it’s not necessarily the skill challenges, but more in the mind and that says, a lot about someone who’s been through that journey taken those ups and downs in his stride and won so many matches and it’s a fantastic effort,” Kumble said.
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