New Delhi: Ravichadran Ashwin has responded to the statement of Pakistan chied Ramiz Raja who said that India has started to ‘respect’ their side. While in press conference, Ashwin was informed of the statement and he responded in an apt manner.

Ravichandran Ashwin responds to Ramiz Raja

“Until you said that, I didn’t know he made a statement like that. That’s one way of dealing with it,” Ashwin said.

“But look, it’s a game of cricket. Whatever political tensions and whatever stays between the teams, the rivalry is big, it means a lot to the people from both countries. But at the end of the day, whatever you may say as a cricketer and as someone who is playing the sport, you do understand that wins and losses are part of the game, especially in this format, the margins are going to be so close,” he added.

Pakistan Chief Ramiz Raja had said – We were underdogs

Earlier, Pakistan chief Ramiz Raja had said that Pakistan were the underdogs but now India has started to respect them.

“Pakistan humesha se underdogs rahein hain jab bhi India se muqabla huye hain, but of late, unhone hume respect dena shuru kardiya hain kyunki unke khayal me yeh hain ki Pakistan hume kabhi hara hi nehi sakte. So yehi main kehta hu ki Pakistan ko credit dijiye kyunki ek billion-dollar team cricket industry ko hum harate he (Pakistan have always been underdogs whenever they have played against India. But, of late, they have started to give them respect, knowing that they can be beaten in this contest. This is where Pakistan should get credit as the India is a ‘billion-dollar’ team),” Raja had said.

India to start their World Cup campaign

Team India is set to start their world cup campaign against Pakistan on October 23 and Men in Blue would aim to heal the wounds of their last tournament.

Here is the World Cup Squad for Team India

Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul (vice-captain), Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Deepak Hooda, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Dinesh Karthik (wicket-keeper), Hardik Pandya, R Ashwin, Yuzvendra Chahal, Axar Patel, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Arshdeep Singh.