Ravi Ashwin reveals the player who hated team meetings the most

In a recent development, Indian spinner Ravi Ashwin has revealed certain insights regarding Virender Sehwag, who is amongst the nominations to be the future Indian coach. Speaking to Cricket humourist Vikram Sathaye in the first episode of his digital premium show ‘What The Duck 2’, Ashwin revealed how Sehwag used to stay behind closed doors when it came to formulating team plans. The show will stream its first episode on Viu, the video-on-demand service on June 5.

Ashwin disclosed that Sehwag used to hate team meetings as he did not believe in playing according to the team nor as per any strategy. In fact, Sehwag’s whims had no boundaries. During the 2011 WC, Sehwag asked a rather nonsensical question which threw off everybody at a meeting. Sehwag had apparently mentioned that he was aware that all players were eligible for six complimentary passes, but were given only three. Thus, to solve the issue, he decided to take matters into his own hands and mentioned that come what may, before the toss, the team must be handed over the remaining passes.

When Gary scheduled a meeting

Speaking to Vikram on the show, the 30-year-old spinner narrated the incident from the 2011 World Cup stating, “During the team meeting in 2011, when we were playing England at Bangalore, Gary (Kirsten, former India coach) had scheduled a meeting at 10 am. Prior to the meeting, Sehwag had told Gary that he wanted to discuss something at that meeting. While everybody thought that Sehwag wanted to contribute tips or discuss learnings from the previous game, Sehwag, his usual witty self, began the discussion around the complimentary passes that every player was eligible to receive.”

Also, with Kumble’s contract approaching its deadline, BCCI are on the lookout for ideal contenders to substitute the veteran leggie at the helm. Apart from Sehwag, a number of applicants have been shortlisted including Lalchand Rajput, Craig McDermott, Tom Moody and Richard Pybus making the cut. There have also been rumours of a possible rift between Kumble and captain Kohli. And thus, Virender Sehwag looks favourite to take over Kumble as the future coach of the Indian team.