India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has joined in paying a tribute to retired cricketer Ravichandran Ashwin, who stunned the fraternity by calling it quits after the third Test against Australia in Brisbane. The two-page letter from Modi has gone viral on social media as he congratulated Ashwin on an illustrious career and observed how the veteran managed to make everyone proud.
Ashwin will go down as India's most successful off-spinner as and their second-highest wicket-taker in Tests with 537 and a total of 765 international scalps. The Tamil Nadu-born cricketer final match for India was the one in Adelaide which the tourists lost by ten wickets. He is also the most prolific off-spinner produced by India.
"Great sense of relief and satisfaction" - Ravichandran Ashwin opens up on his retirement
While Ashwin understood the emotions fans were grappling with after his retirement, the 38-year-old said it will slowly take time for him to sink in. He elaborated, as quoted by ESPN Crcinfo after landing in Chennai:
"It's emotional for a lot of people, and may be it will sink in (in some time) but for me, personally, it is a great sense of relief and satisfaction. It was very instinctive and it has been running in my head for a while. I just felt (it) on day four and I just called it a day. To be honest, we all go through a lot in our career, not only for cricketers but in general. Generally, when I go to sleep I remember a lot of things like taking wickets, making runs, but those memories are not there in the last two years."
