When the whole world stops believing in you and starts to pull you down, the only people who help you stand upright and stop you from crumbling are your family members. Even when the whole world is against you, your family members never leave your side and that is what makes them special. 

Every person has to go through ups and downs in his life and this is the time when he realises how lucky he is to have an amazing family. With their support, a person can come out of any situation and the same happened to Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin.

Breaking records after records, Ashwin is going through a purple patch at the moment but there was a time when he was so fed up that he wanted to call it a time and bring his international career to an abrupt end.

Despite having a terrific limited-overs record, Ashwin was dropped from the limited-overs set-up after the 2017 Champions Trophy. A bowler of his calibre was restricted to only red-ball cricket but he kept performing in the longest format of the game. Despite picking heaps of wickets playing at home, he hardly started in an away Test match, outside of Asia. 

Apart from team management’s indifferent treatment, his injury concerns were another reason why he began contemplating his retirement as he wanted to put an end to all the pain he was going through.

During an interview with ESPNCricninfo, the spin wizard revealed all the reasons why he was seriously considering retiring from the game a couple of years back.

He said: “I contemplated retirement for a lot of reasons. I felt like people were not sensitive enough to my injuries. I felt like a lot of people were backed, why not me? I have done no less. I have won a lot of games for the team, and I am not feeling backed. I don't usually look for help - that somebody needs to back me, that somebody needs to cushion me or give me empathy. I felt I was not being able to be excellent and felt I needed a shoulder to lean on. It was not happening. I thought maybe I should try to find something else and be excellent at that.

“Just after the England series in 2018, after Southampton, was one phase. Again, in Australia later that year where I tore my abdomen after the Adelaide Test, before and after Sydney. Many stages. The only person I would be talking to was my wife. But my father was hell-bent: you will make a comeback in white-ball cricket, and I will see that before I die. For him it was more personal.”  

When none of his teammates provided him the shoulder to lean on, Ashwin turned to his family members and opened up about his feelings which helped overcome navigate through that difficult phase. When a person’s brain is clouded with so much negativity, it’s hard to keep him motivated but his family, especially his father, found a unique way to do that.

His father used to tell him that he would not die before he saw him making his comeback in white-ball cricket and that gave him the strength to have faith in his skills and keep pushing through, without worrying about the end result. 

After more than four years, Ashwin finally made a comeback into the Indian white-ball squad for the 2021 T20 World Cup in the UAE.

When everything seemed lost, a few words of encouragement from his father kept Ashwin pushing and he was finally able to fulfil his wish. As fans of the Indian cricket team we all are really grateful to him for that.

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