[Watch] Ravichandran Ashwin shares glimpses of recreation room, gym from Mumbai hotel
Team India’s veteran off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has given fans an inside view of the recreation room and the gym from the five-star hotel in which the England-bound contingent is quarantining.
The Indian contingent is set to fly off to the UK on Wednesday, June 2. Most of the players have had to undergo a 14-day quarantine while those staying in Mumbai, including Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, joined later.
On Wednesday, Ravichandran Ashwin shared a vlog on his official YouTube channel, through which he gave fans glimpses of how they have been spending time in quarantine.
Describing the hotel as a picnic destination, Ravichandran Ashwin said:
“There are four places here - team room, swimming pool, breakfast, and gym. Team room has individual recreation rooms for men and women. Our men’s recreation room has a chessboard, which no one plays. I have asked several times about it. The person taking this video, Hariprasad (team analyst from Coimbatore), has played once with me and lost. People run away otherwise."
The 34-year-old added that there are board games like monopoly and crossword apart from TT, which the offie described as his favorite pastime.
"Sometimes, R Sridhar (fielding coach) and I used to play board games if we were bored. Otherwise, my favorite game in TT, but the board is too bad here. Sometimes the board is slippery. I cannot play if spin doesn’t work as I am a spinner. The women’ recreation room has a wonderful TT board.
“Dots is another game you can see here. It is a bar game in England. Even kids can play this since it has a magnetic strip attracting the striker. TT is widely played. Cheteshwar Pujara and Rishabh (Pant) are our Rafael (Nadal) and Dominic Thiem. Debble is another interesting game that people play here. Next is PlayStation, which I am in no way related to. I left PlayStation after playing PS2. Tekken was the one I played earlier. Virat plays FIFA well, Rishabh plays.”
Washington Sundar shut his door on May 19 and never stepped out: Ravichandran Ashwin
About fellow off-spinner Washington Sundar, Ravichandran Ashwin joked:
“Washington Sundar shut his door on 19th and never stepped out. I only saw him once again in the gym.”
Entering into the gym area, which has the equipment arranged in a manner where social distancing can be followed adequately, Ashwin revealed:
“(Ravindra) Jadeja runs most on the treadmill.”
The players have been given specific timings during which they can enter the gym area and perform their fitness exercises.
The spinner informed that roughly 50 full-time staff are staying in the hotel with the Indian team. There are people for cooking, serving food, laundry, gym and swimming pool maintenance.
After reaching Southampton for the World Test Championship (WTC) final on June 3, India will be placed in managed isolation. The WTC final between India and New Zealand will be played from June 18-22.