R. Ashwin, adjudged ‘Player of the Series’, was ecstatic about India’s qualification for the WTC final.
“The WTC qualification is the result of the work we’ve put in over the last 10 years. The WTC was announced and we obviously really fought hard. We played six series and we've literally got most of the points. We have lost just three [sic: four] of the Tests in the cycle,” Ashwin said.
“It means a lot to a lot of them in the dressing room. Some of them have not even played a World Cup. I'm so very happy for someone like Ishant Sharma, who got selected in the 2015 World Cup but couldn't play because of a last-minute injury. For someone like him to get to the WTC final would mean the world. I was reading somewhere that he called it the World Cup final for himself.”
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With 32 wickets and 189 runs, including a hundred, Ashwin’s performance was one of the talking points of the series. But when asked about the highlight of the series, he picked a team — not an individual — moment.
“The way we came back in the second Test as a group, we found ourselves in some sticky situations in all these Tests and every time somebody has managed to stand up. That's related to how we have managed to bond as a team.”