Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Rajasthan Royals on Tuesday took a cheeky dig at Indian bowler Ravichandran Ashwin for his recent comment on mankading any batsman who is out of crease during IPL 2020 season.
Ashwin had left the whole of cricket fraternity divided when he had mankaded England's Jos Buttler during the IPL 2019 clash between Rajasthan Royals and Kings XI Punjab in Jaipur. With Buttler going strong on 85 and steadily and almost singlehandedly guided the Royals to a win, Ashwin mankaded the opener to switch things in KXIP's favour. While many questioned Ashwin's intent, the off-spinner and MCC both claimed that it was well within the rules of the game. KXIP had eventually won that game.
On Monday, Ashwin, during a Q and A session on Twitter, was asked by a fan, "Who are the potential batsmen you can Mankad this IPL?" And the Indian immediately replied saying, "Anyone that goes out of the crease."
Taking a dig at Ashwin, Rajasthan Royals' Twitter handle retweeted a fan's tweet that showed cricket balls with the word 'Mankad' written on it and captioned, "My gift to Ashwin this Christmas". The Royals retweeted with the caption, "No points for guessing who is adding this to their cart for."
Defending his actions, Ashwin said after that IPL 2019 match, “It was pretty instinctive. I actually didn’t even load. He left the crease, that’s it. That’s always been my take on it because that’s my half of the crease.”
Earlier in December, Ashwin was traded off to Delhi Capitals by Kings XI Punjab where he joined the likes of Ajinkya Rahane, Shimron Hetmyer, Marcus Stoinis, Alex Carey, Jason Roy and Chris Woakes.
