🔎 Led by @azmatzahra.bsky.social, Director of the Li Center and CJS Professor, together with @meghnadbose.bsky.social, ’24 M.S. Data Journalism, and Lauren Watson, ’24 M.S., the feature outlines how reporters can continue informing the world despite immense obstacles.

Ravichandran Ashwin, spin scientist extraordinaire. A gift to the game we love.

Happy retirement, Ash Anna!

Thank you for all the memories ❤️

The man who was the nemesis of every southpaw, an erudite student of the game par excellence, and a champion who had spun his away across twenty-two yards and into our hearts. One who made spin bowling seem as much of a science as an art.

When I woke up, and opened social media first up as one does, the first thing I saw was news that Ashwin had retired. The comments on social media from a few hours ago were right. An all-time great of the game had indeed called his time in international cricket.

I went to sleep soon after, content that the match in Brisbane would be a drawn one but sad that we didn’t get to see a fascinating full final day of play—who knows, maybe India would have pulled off an audacious ODI-like chase and won the Test?

I then did one of those fan things—sent him a request on Chess.com, hoping somehow that we’d get to face off on the online chess board, I would have been over the moon to do so with one of my favorite cricketers ever.

I wasn’t surprised that he had good ratings in chess—I mean, the man had spent years castling the best batters in the world like it was a game of chess.