Ravi Ashwin gives a witty reply when asked why he stopped watching cricket on TV

Ravi Ashwin was slowly moving away from the focus, thanks to frequent injuries and ordinary outings. The fact that the off-spinner was not too successful on foreign tours over the past one-and-half years also started hurting him. But the 33-year-old made a terrific return to Test cricket in Visakhapatnam against South Africa by picking up a fifer.

After delivering some early blows on Thursday afternoon to leave the Proteas reeling, Ashwin would have expected to take some early wickets on Day 3 to put the Proteas out of the game. Well, that didn’t happen and he conceded 128 runs for his five wickets as Dean Elgar and Quinton de Kock put up a strong resistance. But yet, it was a five-wicket haul and the 27th for the man in the longer format.

Ashwin faced the media after the day’s play and came with a witty answer to a tricky question. One of the reporters reminded him about his saying recently that he stopped watching cricket and asked him about the reason for the same. To that, the Tamil Nadu bowler first said that he has two kids who don’t sleep well in the night and hence keeps their father on his toes as well.

Books, archaeology work are Ashwin’s other interests

But then he gave the actual answer. “I felt like…Every time I watched the game on TV, I felt like I wanted to play the game and I was missing out of it. It is very natural I think. Everybody goes through that. That’s not be all and end all. I generally try to do a few other things in my life as well. Books, a bit of archaeology work, stuff like that,” he said.

Here is the video

Reporter: Why did you stop watching the game?
Ashwin: I have two kids who don't sleep & I got drawn to books 📖📖& archaeology 🧐🧐 #TeamIndia #INDvSA @ashwinravi99 pic.twitter.com/y3Zv4iMFBG

— BCCI (@BCCI) October 4, 2019

For those who are still not aware of it, Ashwin is known for his deep interest on archaeology. It was once even the career option for the bowler who is approaching 350 Test wickets as the fourth Indian bowler. He also has four hundreds in the long format. However, Ashwin had to drop the plan of pursuing archaeology since his elders did not support the idea – lack of monetary incentives being one of the reasons, said one report in Hindustan Times.