'Not here to butter everyone’s toast': Shastri hits back at Ashwin

Former India coach Ravi Shastri said he is glad he called Kuldeep Yadav as “India’s no. 1 overseas spinner”, which apparently irked R Ashwin.

“I am glad I made the statement,” said Shastri in response to Ashwin’s recent statement where he expressed disappointment at Shastri putting Kuldeep above him. Ashwin said recently that he felt like being “thrown under the bus”.

“If my statement on Kuldeep (Yadav) hurt Ashwin, I’m glad I made that statement. It made him do something different,” said Shastri while speaking to The Indian Express.

The former coach said he is against favouritism. “My job is not to butter everyone’s toast. My job is to state facts without agenda,” Shastri added.

Ashwin recently said during a TV interview that he felt like he was being “thrown under the bus”, after a remark by Shastri left him “crushed” during a torrid phase in his career, when he contemplated retirement multiple times. Ashwin was asked how he felt when then coach Shastri anointed Kuldeep Yadav as India’s No. 1 spinner overseas, after he had taken a five-wicket haul in the 2019 Sydney Test against Australia.

Shastri gave a tongue in cheek reply to Ashwin saying he felt like being “thrown under the bus”. “He (Ashwin) need not worry, because I had told the bus driver to stop two-three feet short.”

Also read: Here’s why Ashwin felt like ‘being thrown under the bus’

Shastri went to give reasons why Kuldeep was chosen to play in the Sydney Test. “Ashwin did not play the Test in Sydney and Kuldeep bowled well. So it’s fair I give Kuldeep a chance. If that hurt Ashwin, I’m very happy. If your coach challenges you, what will you do? Go home crying and say ‘I won’t come back’. I, as a player, would take it as a challenge, to prove the coach wrong,” Shastri told The Indian Express.

Shastri said his only objective was to get the best player for India. “In my seven years with the Indian team (as team director followed by the head coach), I had absolutely zero agenda in picking a player. If someone had to take the heat, he had to take the heat for the team,” Shastri added.

Ashwin has often complained that the team management was insensitive to a variety of injuries he suffered between 2017 and 2019. Shastri said Ashwin was clearly told that he had to be completely fit to last a full series. “The message to Ashwin in 2018 was that he had to be fit. He has worked on that and look how he is bowling now. He is world-class. The way Ashwin bowled in 2019 and the way he has bowled in 2021, it’s chalk and cheese,” said Shastri.