Virat Kohli’s Aggressive Send-Off To Ashwin Did Not Sit Well With The True Fans Of Cricket
The twelfth season of the Indian Premier League has been quite eventful for the Kings XI Punjab captain, Ravichandran Ashwin. First, he made the headlines for controversially ‘mankading’ Rajasthan Royals batsman Jos Buttler. Then he tried the same with the Delhi Capitals opener, Shikhar Dhawan but failed miserably and got trolled by ‘Gabbar’ instead. And now, in yet another mid-match wrangle, Ashwin found himself come in the spotlight with no fault of his this time.
In a match between Kings XI and Royal Challengers Bangalore at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Ashwin misread an Umesh Yadav delivery and sent the ball flying towards long on and directly into the hands of a brilliant fielder in Virat Kohli.
Kohli, who was clearly driven by emotion at the time, celebrated Ashwin’s dismissal with an objectionable gesture.
Virat Kohli gesturing to Ashwin’s Mankading absolute savage ! #RCBvKXIP pic.twitter.com/JPiFqM5IBm
— Trojan_Horse (@sampath0272) April 24, 2019
The send-off clearly irked the Chennai-born all-rounder who was visibly angry as he reached the dugout and threw his gloves on the ground with force.
Ashwin, however, clarified the exchange that took place between the two former teammates who once used to play for Team India in all formats of the game.
“I just played with passion, so does he (Virat). That’s it. As simple as that,” Ashwin said in the post-match press conference.
As far as the match is concerned, the former Proteas captain AB de Villiers found a brilliant batting form midway his innings and went on to score an unbeaten 82 off just 44 deliveries while established a grand total of 202 runs, which turned out to be overwhelming for Punjab.
Winning their fourth win of the tournament, RCB look like a new team altogether as they sit on a three-game winning streak and have surpassed Rajasthan Royals in the points table, grabbing the seven spot in the league.
However, the gesture made by Kohli did not sit well with the fans of cricket as a whole and they reacted to it with a lot of anger on social media:
Ashwin did nothing..
Kohli mocks him by abusive act…if someone act same like him to his family member..how he feel ?#RCBvKXIP pic.twitter.com/ETFSPtBZHz— dinesh (@dnshblj) April 24, 2019
Virat Kohli on field behavior disgraceful why is he giving such a send-off to Ashwin after loosing 7 games almost in a row learn from Ms Dhoni and Rohit Sharma
— TIMOROUS ENIGMA (@enigma_timorous) April 24, 2019
We like your win but not kohli unprofessional Gestures when #R Ashwin# was out
— IamRaj (@brajukumar1) April 24, 2019
We like your win but not kohli unprofessional Gestures when #R Ashwin# was out
— IamRaj (@brajukumar1) April 24, 2019
What’s wrong with u Virat Kohli. This is not a celebration it’s abusing someone. Ashwin is ur team mate. Give respect ur team mate.
This is unacceptable from Indian Captain.
At d end of d day you’ll be remembered for ur behavior
