{"id":224824,"date":"2026-01-09T10:23:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T10:23:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/224824\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T10:23:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T10:23:17","slug":"adi-ashok-excited-to-get-india-gig-for-black-caps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/224824\/","title":{"rendered":"Adi Ashok excited to get India gig for Black Caps"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Adi<\/p>\n

\nAdi Ashok bowls for the Black Caps against Bangladesh in the second one-day international at Saxton Oval, Nelson, 20 December.
\nPhoto: Photosport\n<\/p>\n

Black Caps leg spinner Adi Ashok can’t wait for the excitement of cricket in India, the country of his birth.<\/p>\n

Ashok, who played two ODIs and a T20 for New Zealand in 2023, is in the squad which has the first of three ODI matches against India in Vadodara on Sunday (9pm start NZT).<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old was just 4-years-old when he left India when his parents decided to move to Auckland for jobs in the medical field.<\/p>\n

Ashok has been back to India since but has not been to a big cricket match there and has been taking in what more seasoned team-mates have told him about their experiences.<\/p>\n

“They talk about the bars and the atmosphere and how much the people love cricket and stuff like that.”<\/p>\n

That’s something he has also gleaned from his father, Ashok, a cricket tragic.<\/p>\n

“My father is an absolute nuffy, and his passion for cricket is insane. And, you know, he obviously lived here (in India) for so long… And I guess that’s part of where I learnt and got my desire for cricket as well, through my old man,” he said.<\/p>\n

Ashok, who played for New Zealand in the Under-19 World Cup in South Africa in 2020, suffered a setback after making the Black Caps in 2023 when he needed surgery for a back injury the following year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He needed 10 months off recuperating, but was back in the squad but didn’t play when Pakistan visited for an ODI series last March.<\/p>\n

Last year the Aucklander gazumped fellow Indian-born spinners Ajaz Patel and Ish Sodhi in gaining a Black Caps central contract last June<\/a>, though both of them have since played for the national side.<\/p>\n

Now he is likely to get his chance to show his wares.<\/p>\n

“It’s just going to be an exciting opportunity to come to the country that really celebrates cricket.”<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adi Ashok bowls for the Black Caps against Bangladesh in the second one-day international at Saxton Oval, Nelson,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-224824","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}