Senior India cricketer Ravichandran Ashwin was adjudged the Sportsman of the Year (Cricket) for the year 2021 at the annual Sportstar Aces Awards ceremony held in Mumbai.
The ace off-spinner had a spectacular 2021 with impressive performances in Australia where he chipped in with crucial wickets in India’s 2-1 series win.
Another notable performance on that tour was with the bat where he and Hanuman Vihari batted out two sessions to help draw the third Test in Sydney while battling back spasms.
He followed it up with a spectacular series against England at home where he scalped 32 wickets and went past 400 wickets. He also had three five-wicket hauls in the series. The icing on the cake in that series was his tremendous performance in front of his home crowd in Chennai in the second Test where he slammed a century and picked up a five-for. Later in the year, the 35-year-old made his comeback to the limited-overs set-up playing in both T20 Internationals and One-Day Internationals after being overlooked for over four years.
“Hello to the Sportstar and The Hindu family. I have always followed cricket and other sports through The Hindu and waited for Sportstar magazine to collect the posters of my favourite stars. Unfortunately, I couldn’t be there in person to collect my award due to the pandemic. I would like to thank the family of The Hindu and Sportstar for always being there for the sport and today for honouring me,” Ashwin said in a pre-recorded video message.
In the recently-concluded Test series against Sri Lanka, the off-spinner from Tamil Nadu reached yet another milestone when he went past Kapil Dev’s tally of 434 wickets to become India’s second-highest wicket-taker in Test cricket, behind only Anil Kumble (619 wickets).
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