Veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin recently recalled a scary incident which happened when he was a teenager.
During a chat show on cricbuzz, the cricketer revealed that when he was a teenager, he used to play tennis ball tournaments. Once, when he was all set to appear in one such match, he was approached by a group of guys.
"My friend had the habit of getting me to play tennis ball tournaments...So, one of those days we were supposed to play a final and we have this culture of sort of people priding themselves on winning a competition like that. As I was about to leave, there were four or five guys who came in Royal Enfields - properly muscular and big," cricbuzz quoted him as saying.
The people took the cricketer to a tea stall and ordered food for him. They assured him that the food is safe to eat. He then asked them to drop him at the match venue and it was then they told him that they were from the opposite team and they did not want to play the game. It was the final of the tournament. They threatened to cut his figures off if he played the final.
"I must've been about 14 or 15. They took me to a posh tea stall. A tea shop is a big culture thing in Chennai. Next to all the grounds, there is a tea shop which have got those benches and all that. They made me sit there, ordered bajjis and vadas and all that, and said 'have, have, don't be afraid, we're here to help you out'. It was around 3:30-4:00 PM and I said the match is going to start, let's go. So they said, 'no, no, we're actually from the opposition, we wanted to stop you from playing. If you go and play we'll make sure your fingers are not there,” the cricketer was quoted as saying.
