Veteran Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on Monday responded to former cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar's recent comment on the offie where he refused to club him into the all-time great list.
Manjrekar made the comment during a discussion on ESPNCricinfo following which he was criticised. He later took to Twitter to clarify his comment and Ashwin replied to the post sharing a dialogue from Tamil movie Anniyan. The meme had the dialogue written - "apdi solladha da chaari, manasellam valikirdhu," which transkates to - "don't say that, it hurts."
Despite a tally of 409 wickets in 78 appearances with 30 five-wicket hauls, Manjrekar had opined that he doesn't see Ashwin as an all-time great given his record in overseas Test.
“When people start talking about him as being one of the all-time greats of the game then I have a few problems,” Manjrekar said on ESPNcricinfo. “One basic problem I have with Ashwin is that when you look at SENA countries, Ashwin doesn’t have a single five-wicket haul there,” he added.
“And the other thing when you talk about him running through sides on Indian pitches that are suited to his kind of bowling is that in the last four years, Jadeja has matched him with wicket-taking abilities.
“Then, interestingly, in the last series against England, Axar Patel got more wickets than Ashwin on similar pitches. So that is my problem with accepting Ashwin as a real all-time great,” Manjrekar said.
He later explained his opinion on Twitter writing, "‘All- time great’ is the highest praise & acknowledgement given to a cricketer. Cricketers like Don Bradman, Sobers, Gavaskar, Tendulkar, Virat etc are all time greats in my book. With due respect, Ashwin not quite there as an all-time great yet.
