Ricky Ponting with Shreyas Iyer and R Ashwin
Delhi Capitals newbie Ravichandran Ashwin on Tuesday shared a cheeky post on maintaining "social distancing" with franchise head coach and former Australia captain Ricky Ponting. The post came days after the head coach opined on the ever-lasting Mankading debate and admitted that he would disallow such dismissals at Delhi Capitals.
Earlier last month, Ponting, in an interview mentioned that he would have a "hard conversation" with Ashwin over the Mankading debate. Ashwin, later a video on his YouTube channel, said that he has already had an interesting chat with the head coach regarding the same but did not mention the details of the conversation.
Ponting joined the Delhi Capitals training session on Tuesday after completing his mandatory period of quarantine. Ashwin took to social media to share a picture of the coach giving an elbow bump to franchise skipper Shreyas Iyer. Ashwin, who stood behind the two in the frame, shared the picture with the caption, @rickyponting and I are socially distanced. @shreyas41."
Ponting had arrived later than the rest of the squad that came from India.
DC said that Ponting met the squad and conducted the training session at the ICC Academy in Dubai.
The rest of the team had started practice on Saturday.
The 13th edition of the IPL will start on September 19 and will be played entirely in the UAE. The tournament was initially scheduled to start on March 29 but had to be initially postponed to April 15 due to the Covid-19 pandemic in India. It eventually got postponed indefinitely due to the ensuing lockdown in the country amid the pandemic.
(with IANS inputs)
