Former Indian cricketer was honoured with the Padma Shri award on Monday, April 28 for his achievements in the sport of cricket. Notably, the Tamil Nadu cricketer had announced his retirement in the middle of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25. He has now admitted that the thoughts about retirement came to him twice during the years.

Ashwin revealed that retirement thoughts sparked in his mind during the home series against Australia in 2023 and then a year later when India crushed England at home. The off-spinner opened up that he wanted to rest his kits after the 100th Test, but decided to play in the home season.

“To be very honest, I wanted to do it after my 100th Test. And then I thought, 'Ok, let me give it a go in the home season'. Because, I mean, you’re playing well and you’re getting wickets, you’re making runs. So I thought it does make sense to play a bit. I was having a lot of fun, but the whole hard yards that I had to put through to put myself in the park again, physically and mentally, one of the most important things for me that was pulling me down was the family time,” Ashwin said on the podcast show Mike Testing 123 to Mike Hussey.

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The veteran spinner mentioned that he wanted to retire after the Chennai Test against Bangladesh, where he picked up a six-wicket haul and also scored a hundred. However, he acknowledged that quitting the game with that kind of form was not easy. Later, when he did not perform that well in the , he convinced himself to take a shot at the tour of Australia given his exceptional performance in the previous attempt against the Kangaroos in their backyard.

He admitted that he mulled over the thoughts and then decided about retirement after the second Test in Adelaide, as he was rested in the series opener in Perth.

“I thought I’ll probably close off (with) the Chennai Test here. I ended up getting a six-wicket haul and a hundred. So it’s very tough to quit when you’re doing very well. So, I went on with the series and we lost against New Zealand. So one after the other, it was just building up. And then I thought, okay, let me go to Australia. Let me see how this goes. Because the last time I was in Australia, I had a great, great tour. And when I didn’t start in Perth, it was like, okay, this whole circle keeps going again. People add very little value to what you’re going through emotionally. They don’t really consider that because your emotions are yours and it doesn’t matter to anybody else. So I had been contemplating that and then I thought, okay, maybe it is time,” he added.