Ravindra Jadeja, Umesh Yadav, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Ravichandran Ashwin and Jasprit Bumrah pose in front of the honours board after India's victory in the 2nd Test on Tuesday (Twitter/AshwinRavi99) Ravichandran Ashwin, one of the architects of India’s resounding victory over the hosts in the 2nd Test in Melbourne, said he considers the win as the most special he has been part of because of a variety of reasons.
โMany of us have played for a while now and we have had some special wins but if I had to pick one that would be extremely special is this one for a lot of reasons. This team minus Virat (Kohli), the batting giant that India had over the last decade or so, is not that easy and Jinks (Ajinkya Rahane) stood up and that is one of the finest cricketing knocks I have seen,โ Ashwin said in a video posted by BCCI.
Not many had predicted that India, in the absence of regular skipper Virat Kohli, would manage to mount a resistance at the MCG, given that they had been bundled out for 36/9 in the second innings of the 1st Test.
When your backs are up against the wall, lean back and enjoy the support of the wall!! Well done to the entire team and what a win that was๐ฏ๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฅ๐ฅณ๐ฅณ.
Special mention to Mohd Siraj and @RealShubmanGill ๐๐..@ajinkyarahane88 @cheteshwar1 @Jaspritbumrah93 @y_umesh @imjadeja pic.twitter.com/4t8IlxZFlWโ Ashwin ๐ฎ๐ณ (@ashwinravi99) December 29, 2020
โThe best thing that we did was just walk away from that game — in Adelaide — and we said that it was just one of those unfortunate days and the batting unit definitely did take responsibility for it. Most importantly, losing Virat was not easy but the discussion we had around it and the team-building exercises that we did through that phase from Adelaide to Melbourne was very crucial and Jinks was very, very calm and balanced which gave many of us the launch-pad to go out there and express ourselves after that defeat,โ Ashwin said in the video posted on the BCCI website.
Senior player Cheteshwar Pujara also said the MCG win would be among the top five victories he has been a part of.
โI think this will definitely be in one of the top five victories I have been part of and the overseas victories are always special,” Pujara said in the video.