Former India coach Rahul Dravid took a sly dig on Ravichandran Ashwin, reminiscing an old controversial moment from the 2023 Border-Gavaskar Trophy during the latest episode of kutti Stories with Ash. The incident involved former India off-spinner facing heavy trolling and backlash for allegedly helping Australia through his native Tamil language on his YouTube video on how to play spin on turning Indian pitches.
The expert got embroiled in controversy after he uploaded the video following Australia's loss in the second Test. Worse, Ashwin faced even more heat when the visitors went onto win the third Indore Test, with the netizens criticizing and trolling Ashwin of coaching the opposition. With such a severe backlash, the channel was forced to change the video's thumbnail.
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Dravid bought the entire light-hearted episode with Ashwin, and managed to have a fun banter with him.
"You coached the Australian team. I sent a clip. Unfortunately, it was in Tamil. So that's the one I have seen about you. You are speaking Tamil, and with a little bit of Tamil, I understand, you are coaching the Australian team in the middle of the Australian series, on how to play spin. And I am thinking, Ash, the series is not over," Dravid said.
The former off-spinner responded in his defense:
"If I knew how to do that, I would have told our boys how to play spin. I mean, why would I go and tell the Aussies?"
I also faced a lot of flak due to this spin controversy: Rahul Dravid
The former India coach later stated that while he was joking, he also faced immense heat and flak at that time.
"The flak I got was 'Ashwin is coaching better than you are - what are you doing?" he said with a laugh.
Ashwin later also reflected on his conversation with Aussie pacer Mitchell Starc during the Indore Test:
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"An interesting thing was that (Starc) came and told me. I mean, he bowled a bumper, I left it in the Indore Test match. I think we're 80 for 7 or something. We went for lunch, and he was walking with me. I was like, 'Can I tell you how to play the bouncer like your YouTube video?"
Dravid further went onto pull Ashwin's leg and said that the Australians might have found a translator.
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"It's good to know that Starc knows Tamil. I think it was maybe the Australian guys got some Tamil guy to sort of..." he said, before Ashwin clarified that the video carried subtitles.
