The five-minute walk from the dressing room to the press box might just be the most poignant, heart-wrenching journey Ravichandran Ashwin ever took in his 14-year-old international career, but a call every athlete has to make at some point in their life. There would be no 5 o'clock alarms for Anna going forward, no spending hours in the nets trying to perfect a certain delivery and the ball perhaps will never meet the bat with the same conviction as it had been for his whole life up until now. That's the price you pay in professional sports. Retirement comes early and hits you sooner rather than later. Quite unlike some of us, where at 38 - the peak is yet to come.

Did the retirement come as a surprise to some of us? Of course, it did. As the storm subsided at Gabba, the reality started to settle in and maybe it makes more sense now. He is Ravichandran Ashwin after all and any decline in form, and Anna doesn't need a second invitation to acknowledge it. A proud man, who always tried to excel in whatever job he was tasked to do. His 765 wickets to go with 6 centuries is a testament to that fact. India didn't lose a home series for 12 years and Ashwin was at the forefront of that success. You need to pause for a minute, take a couple of deep breaths to understand the magnitude of what he has done for India. And then came New Zealand last month.

In a sport, where cricketers drag their careers long past their prime, Ashwin decided to hang up his boots with good a couple of years left in the tank. And this is no exaggeration. Perhaps, the 3-0 loss against New Zealand at home scarred him mentally to the extent that it made him think. The resurgence of Washington Sundar possibly gave that thought enough conviction to become a reality.

Sundar played the first Test match against Australia in Perth and as has been the case mostly in the last six years or so - it was Ashwin who always made way for either Ravindra Jadeja or another seamer overseas, despite being India's best spinner by country mile. That's got to hurt and therefore when he didn't start the series, one can guess he made up his mind to walk away without much drama - no farewell Test, no guard of honour, no farewell speech.

Ashwin questioned the unquestionable, looked at the game differently and stood up for all the right reasons. He was always blessed with a sharp cricketing brain but his quest to evolve as a cricketer every passing day by trying to change a few things, and experiment when needed also made him a brave cricketer. Much like the old adage 'fortune favours the brave,' it deserted him at a time when the game is in desperate need of such characters. So as he calls time on a glittering career, he would remain a captain India never had.

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