Even after playing a brilliant run in the ODI World Cup 2023, India suffered a heartbreak when they lost to Australia in the final at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on November 19.

Veteran Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who was in contention to play the final due to the slow nature of the Ahmedabad track, was not picked in the final XI.

However, the 37-year-old didn’t have any complaints or issues after not being selected for the summit showdown and understood that India had won six games on a trot with the team being unchanged.

Speaking to ex-India batter Subramaniam Badrinath on his YouTube channel, Ashwin revealed that he understood Indian skipper Rohit Sharma’s point of view during the final saying that if he was the skipper then he would have thought a hundred times before changing the team combination at the last moment. He also agreed that a spinner couldn’t have played in place of a fast bowler considering the rampant run the Indian pacers had in the World Cup.

“As far as I am concerned, I playing the final, team combination and all that is secondary. Firstly, it’s about empathy, I keep stressing it a lot. It’s about standing in someone else’s shoes and looking at things from his/her viewpoint. If I had been in Rohit’s shoes, I would have thought 100 times about changing the combination. It was going very well for the team. Why would I rest a fast bowler and play 3 spinners?” said Ashwin in a conversation with Badrinath.

Ashwin played just one World Cup game and that to the opener against Australia at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, his home ground, on October 8. The spinner dismissed Australian all-rounder Cameron Green for eight in 20 balls and ended up with impressive figures of 1/34 in 10 overs.

Ashwin along with Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja spun a web and shared six wickets among them to help India skittle Australia for 199 in the first innings. Chasing a target of 200, India suffered an early hiccup when Australia reduced the Men in Blue to 2/3.