Former India cricketer Gautam Gambhir was unhappy with David Warner launching a no ball from Mohammad Hafeez for a six during the semi-final clash of the ICC T20 World Cup. The ball slipped out of his hands and tapped twice on its way to the batter where the Aussie cricketer launched it for a six, knowing fully well that it would be called a no ball. Gambhir was taken aback with this sort of behavior and called out Warner publicly on Twitter, he even tagged Ravichandran Ashwin in that very tweet. The tweet garnered all the attention and senior Australian journalist also replied at Gambhir, expressing his displeasure. It also got a reply from Ravichandran Ashwin himself.
What an absolutely pathetic display of spirit of the game by Warner! #Shameful What say @ashwinravi99? pic.twitter.com/wVrssqOENW— Gautam Gambhir (@GautamGambhir) November 11, 2021
After the journalist replied: “Bad Take Gautam”, Ashwin justified on Gambhir’s behalf. “His point is that if this is right, that was right. If that was wrong , this is wrong too. Fair assessment?," the offie wrote back. Gambhir’s whole intention for tagging Ashwin was to rekindle the 2018 IPL affair where he ran out Jos Buttler through mankding. Ashwin remains a target of the puritans till this day for the act he committed more than three years ago, especially former Australia and England cricketers being his vociferous critics. The tweet seemed to be suggesting, as Ashwin mentioned, that if Warner can defy spirit of cricket to play such a shot, shouldn’t Ashwin be allowed to get wickets through mankading.
His point is that if this is right , that was right. If that was wrong , this is wrong too. Fair assessment? @plalor— Ashwin 🇮🇳 (@ashwinravi99) November 12, 2021
He also attacked Australia cricketers like Ricky Ponting and Shane Warne for speaking in favour of ‘Spirit of Cricket.’ Both the players have repeatedly targeted the offie for his behaviour towards Jos Buttler on that fateful night.
“Shane Warne makes all kinds of comments,” Gambhir said during a post-match show. “tweets about everything, Ricky Ponting says big things about the spirit of the game. What will they say about this [Warner incident]?”
“When Ashwin ‘Mankads’, you get to hear all sorts of big talk – what does Warne have to say about Warner today? It’s easy to say things about others, difficult to say about your own players.”
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