Ravichandran returned to his home midway in the 14th season of the Indian Premier League. Earlier, Ashwin did not explain the reason behind this; however, later Ashwin's wife Prithi had informed that 10 members of his family were infected with Coronavirus and that is why the off-spinner decided to return home. Now, Ashwin has given his first reaction on the decision to withdraw from IPL 2021.

The Indian spinner recalled that difficult time and said that he had played IPL matches for 8 to 9 days without sleeping properly. Ashwin said that he was also thinking about whether he would be able to play cricket again or not.

"Almost everyone from my place had got affected due to COVID. In fact, a few of my cousins also got admitted and were serious and they somehow recovered. I couldn’t sleep for almost 8-9 days,” he revealed in his YouTube channel.

“Since I couldn’t sleep, it was really stressful for me. I was playing matches without getting any sleep. And since I found it really taxing, I had to quit IPL and go home midway. In fact, when I left, around that time, I had thoughts on whether I will be able to play cricket thereafter. But still, I did what was required at that point in time.

“I thought there won’t be any cricket for some time. Even IPL got postponed. In between, when people in my house started recovering, I thought of coming back into the IPL and that’s when IPL was called off.”

In addition to Ashwin, players such as Andrew Tye, Liam Livingstone, Kane Richardson and Adam Jampa had also left the tournament midway due to the Covid-19 situation and returned home. On May 4, the BCCI decided to postpone IPL 2021 after several players were found to be Corona positive.