Team India's 'Superstar' Indebted To Ashwin. Reason Is A Google Search

Recently, after India’s win over Bangladesh in the first Test, Ravichandran Ashwin revealed an interesting anecdote about the national team’s fielding coach. Dilip, who replaced R Sridhar as India fielding coach during Rahul Dravid’s stint as head coach, continued in his role when Gautam Gambhir took over as well. A Google search about T Dilip strangely returned his profile as an ‘internet personality’ but for veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, the underrated support staff is a “superstar” who has improved the Indian fielding standards, particularly that of slip catching.

After factoring in excellent feedback from the team members, who thought Dilip introduced some innovative drills, the BCCI decided to persist with him. He also introduced the now popular ‘Best Fielder’ medal after every match, which is presented in a quick ceremony inside the dressing room.

“If you want to talk about fielding, where should we start? Let’s talk about Dilip sir first. Actually, we’d searched for our fielding coach (in Google) and he turned out to be an internet personality. So unfair,” Ashwin told reporters here on Sunday after the first Test against Bangladesh.

“He is not an internet personality. He is our celebrity fielding coach. Superstar,” he added.

In a BCCI video, Dilip recently opened up about the incident.

“It was great of Ash to bring up this topic. About a month ago, I was quite surprised when one of my friends typed my name into Google, and it showed ‘internet personality.’ I thought, ‘What is this internet personality?’ I’m glad Ashwin mentioned it, and now it’s been corrected to ‘fielding coach.’ As for the celebrity part, I’m not sure about that,” Dilip said with a laugh.