Ravichandran Ashwin won his 11th Player of the Series award after India white-washed Bangladesh 2-0 at home recently. With this win, Ashwin equaled the world record for most Player of the Series wins held by Sri Lanka’s Muttiah Muralitharan.
The Rohit Sharma-led team secured the victory in the match despite two days being called off due to rain. Ashwin picked up five wickets across two innings of the second and final Test match.
Earlier, Ravichandran Ashwin had scored a match-winning century and picked a haul of six wickets in the first Test in Chennai. Ravichandran Ashwin was named Player of the Match for his efforts as well,
However, as per Indian Express, the Player of the Series award win by Ravichandran Ashwin after the Bangladesh series should’ve given him the world record for most such wins. This didn’t happen because of Cricket West Indies.
Ravichandran Ashwin Denied World Record For Most Player-of-the-Series Awards By Cricket West Indies
The Player of the Series award win was the 11th for Ravichandran Ashwin, equalling Muttiah Muralitharan’s record in Test cricket. However, the 38-year-old bowler would have broken Muralitharan’s record if he had gotten a similar accolade during India’s visit to the West Indies last year.
According to The Indian Express, an official error during Ashwin’s West Indies tour stopped him from breaking the record with his performance against Bangladesh. Ashwin was the highest wicket-taker with 15 wickets and 56 runs as India won the series 1-0 in the West Indies.
According to the report, Ashwin did not receive the Man of the Series award during the presentation event after the second Test in Port of Spain. According to the Indian Express, Cricket West Indies (CWI) stated that the sponsorship for the Test series was managed by an Indian agency.
However, the agency stressed that it only handled commercial matters and that the award was part of CWI’s cricket operations.
There was some blame-shifting between CWI and the Indian agency over the award, but it should have gone to Ashwin, even if it wasn’t during the post-match ceremony.
The 38-year-old will next play in a three-match Test series against New Zealand, which begins on October 16. He is now India’s second most successful Test bowler in history, with 527 wickets in 102 matches, including 37 five-wicket hauls.
In addition to his bowling achievements, Ashwin has scored 3423 runs, including six centuries and 14 fifties.
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