Shane Warne Critiques Ashwin – “It Should Have been a Dead Ball”

Published 03/26/2019, 6:23 AM EDT

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via Imago

Shane Warne joined the cricket fraternity in criticising Ravichandran Ashwin after he effected a very controversial dismissal by ‘Mankading’ Jos Buttler who was looking in imperious form.

For the uninitiated, Ravichandran Ashwin was preparing to make his delivery. But then, he suddenly bowled out Jos Buttler at the non-striker’s end. Buttler was caught unaware and out of his crease and Ashwin sensed the opportunity and took it. While on one hand, there is no rule condemning it, on the other end of the scale, such an act is frowned upon.

Warne said, “So disappointed in Ravi Ashwin as a captain and as a person,” Warne wrote. “All captains sign the IPL wall and agree to play in the spirit of the game. (Ashwin) had no intention of delivering the ball — so it should have been called a dead ball. Over to you BCCI — this a not a good look for the IPL.”

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“Ashwin’s actions were simply disgraceful and I hope the BCCI doesn’t condone this sort of behaviour in the IPL.

“As captain of your side you set the standard of the way the team wants to play and what the team stands for! Why do such a disgraceful and low act like that tonight? You must live with yourself and FYI — it’s too late to say sorry Mr Ashwin. You will be remembered for that low act.”

Warne further added – “Any player in the game that does that to anyone is an embarrassment to the game and as captain it’s even more disgraceful.”

Ashwin has defended himself – “On my part it was very instinctive and it was not planned or anything like that,”.

“It is there in the rules of the game. I don’t know where the understanding of the spirit of the game comes from because quite naturally if it’s there in the rules, it’s there. So probably the rules need to go back and be sorted.”

“I didn’t even load and he left the crease. It’s always been my take on it, because it’s my half of the crease,” Ashwin added.

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“We ended on the right side of it but those things are game-changers and batsmen need to be wary of it”.

The incident totally overshadowed Kings XI Punjab player Chris Gayle’s performance and  Rajasthan Royals‘ Steve Smith’s comeback, which were the majorly anticipated events going into the match. However, the crowd received their money’s worth and thoroughly got entertained in a well contested game between these otherwise underperforming franchises.

This is the first time that somebody has been dismissed in this fashion in IPL history, which appears surprising considering the eccentric and rare things the IPL has seen in its lifetime so far.

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The jury is still out on the incident being fair or not and the war of words is expected to continue as the cricket world appear to be miffed at the incident. We can surely speculate that KXIP aren’t going to be the top contenders for the FairPlay award after this.

via Imago

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Dhruv George

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Dhruv George is a senior Formula One and NASCAR analyst for EssentiallySports, having authored nearly 12000 articles spanning different sports like F1, NASCAR, Tennis, NFL, and eSports. He graduated with a PG Diploma in Journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications. Dhruv has also conducted interviews with F1 driver Pierre Gasly and Moto2 rider Tony Arbolino.
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