Ravichandran Ashwin was awarded the Player of the Series award in the recently concluded Bangladesh Test series. Ashwin scored a century and took 6 wickets in the first innings of Chennai Test, while in the second match also he played an important role in defeating Bangladeshi Lions early. In this series, Ashwin scored a total of 114 runs with his bat at an average of 57, and also took the maximum 11 wickets jointly. Apart from Ashwin, Jasprit Bumrah had similar successes in the series.
Ashwin has equaled the world record of Sri Lankan legendary spinner Muttiah Muralitharan with this Player of the Series award. Yes, Ashwin and Muralitharan now have the record of winning the most 11-11 Player of the Series awards in Test cricket. But do you know that Ashwin would have made this world record by now, if West Indies Cricket had not made a big mistake last year.
In fact, last year when India toured West Indies for a two-match Test series, they defeated the hosts 1-0 in the series. In the second match, Mohammad Siraj was awarded the Player of the Match award, but the board did not give the Player of the Series award to anyone. Whereas Ashwin deserved it by performing brilliantly in the series.
In that series against West Indies, Ashwin took 15 wickets, whereas no other bowler could take more than 7 wickets. Yashasvi Jaiswal, who was making his Test debut, was the second contender for Player of the Series, having scored 266 runs at an average of 88.66.
If Ashwin had received the Player of the Series award during that time, then today he would have made this world record in his name with 12 Player of the Series awards.
According to the Indian Express report, Cricket West Indies has blamed an Indian agency, which sponsored the series, for this mistake. On the other hand, the Indian agency pointed out that they were only responsible for commercial activities and the Player of the Series award was the responsibility of the West Indies cricket governing body.
However, if the board forgets to give the award to the player or team after the match, then it is given later, but this has not happened yet in this case.