The India legend announced his retirement from international cricket after the third Test of the Australia series, having only played one game out of the three.

"This will be my last day as an Indian cricketer in all formats at the international level. I do feel there's a bit of punch left in me as a cricketer, but I would like to expose and showcase that in club level cricket. This will be the last day," Ashwin said in his post-retirement press conference.

Following that, Ashwin left for India and arrived at his hometown Chennai on Thursday (December 19) morning to a rousing welcome. Ashwin's father, Ravichandran, however, stirred up a bit of a storm by claiming that Ashwin had been facing "humiliation" which led him to the decision.

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“Definitely, no doubt about it (being emotional for the family), because he was on the field for 14-15 years. The sudden change - retirement – gave us really kind of a shock. At the same time, we were expecting it because humiliation was going on. How long he can tolerate all those things? Probably, he would have decided on his own," Ravichandran told CNN News18 earlier today.

While he didn't go into the details of what he felt the humiliation was, it could have something to do with Ashwin not getting regular game time away from home. In the ongoing series, Washington Sundar, who only recently made a Test comeback, was preferred over him for the Perth Test and Ravindra Jadeja was picked in his place for the Gabba Test.

“(Retiring) is his (Ashwin’s) wish and desire, I cannot interfere in that, but the way in which he gave that, there could be many reasons. Only Ashwin knows, maybe humiliation," Ahwin's father would go on to add.

Ashwin: He is not media trained

With clips of his father's interview going viral, Ashwin came across one such post on X (formerly Twitter) and cleared the air in his own humorous manner.

Ashwin defended his father by saying that he wasn't media trained and asked people to leave him alone, while also directing a "What is this?" at him for his emotional statement.

"I never thought you would follow this rich tradition of 'dad statements'," Ashwin said followed by a laughing emoji, diffusing any controversy.

Ashwin did not express any grievance in his retirement speech or otherwise that would suggest his father's words are correct. But Rohit Sharma did mention that he had to convince Ashwin to stay on and delay his retirement as the veteran all-rounder had been thinking about it for a while.

With 4,394 runs and 765 wickets in international cricket, Ashwin retired as one of the greatest all-rounders to have played the game.