'I wanted people to know me for who I am, because a lot of times, Ashwin's picking up a wicket and Virat Kohli is all over the place.'
'He's just jumping about, and people very often tend to believe that Ashwin's the one that's absolutely serious and Virat's the one that's having all the fun.'
Ravichandran Ashwin is as skillful with his words as he is with his cricketing abilities.
Whether it's through media interactions or his popular YouTube channel, Ashwin has a knack for captivating his audience.
He balances humour, cheeky jibes, and insightful revelations to keep his listeners engaged.
At the twilight of his cricketing career, Ashwin felt the need to show the world who he truly is. This desire led to his readable memoir, I Have The Streets: A Kutty Cricket Story, released in July, just months before he announced his retirement during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series in Australia.
In a recent Sky Sports podcast with former England captain Michael Atherton, Ashwin delved into why he wrote the book.
'I wanted people to know me for who I am, because a lot of times, Ashwin's picking up a wicket and Virat Kohli is all over the place. He's just jumping about, and people very often tend to believe that Ashwin's the one that's absolutely serious and Virat's the one that's having all the fun.
'My answer to that in the first place is I'm never a serious person, but when somebody is clobbering me, and I have the ball in my hand to win a Test match for my country, my mind is sticking because I'm in the process,' Ashwin said.
Addressing another myth, Ashwin highlighted how he doesn't celebrate milestones in the extravagant manner some might expect.
'So very often, you don't see me picking up a five-wicket haul and pushing across a kiss through the blade of my bat to my better half sitting in the dressing room or hospitality box. So I felt like a lot of who I am got diluted in the fact of what I've become. So I wanted to bring that out in my book,' he explained.
Ashwin, who boasts 37 five-wicket hauls in Test cricket -- an Indian record -- and 11 Player of the Series awards, the highest in the format, emphasised that cricket is a team sport and every player has a unique story.
Despite being India's second-highest wicket-taker across formats with 765 wickets, he shared that he believes Indian cricket's narrative often sidelines players who aren't in the limelight.
'A lot of people talk about, when they talk about Indian cricket, that's one thing I want to change over the years. They talk about Virat Kohli, they have been talking about Rohit over the years. When I grew up, I spoke a lot about Sachin, I spoke about other superstars, the celebrities.
'One message I would leave for everybody and I want to constantly change is that it's not the fact that these are glorious cricketers but people on the outside who believe that everyone plays a support cast are extremely wrong because this is a sport.'
'An MVP in my life, for my dad or for my mom, I am the MVP. It's not Rohit, Virat or somebody on the outside. Likewise, everyone's journey is unique. For me, I have always been the MVP, and I am the MVP of my cricket.'
