R Ashwin, who was with Kings XI Punjab in the last edition of the IPL, had mankaded Rajasthan Royals’ Jos Buttler in one of the matches of the league.
The match was talked about for months just because of that one incident. This year Ashwin is in another team, Delhi Capitals and its coach Australian Ricky Ponting believes that what Ashwin did might be correct in the rule books but was not in the spirit of cricket.
Enraged by this assertion by his former captain and current Capitals’ coach, former Australian Chinaman bowler, Brad Hogg challenged the ‘spirit of cricket’ analogy given by Ponting.
Hogg took to twitter and quoting a Cricbuzz tweet, in which this news about Ponting’s statement was published, wrote, “Batsman leaving the crease before the ball is delivered, when they know they’re getting an advantage, is that in the spirit of the game! #cricket #IPL2020”
Batsman leaving the crease before the ball is delivered, when they know they’re getting an advantage, is that in the spirit of the game!#cricket #IPL2020 https://t.co/seSB4fv89z
— Brad Hogg (@Brad_Hogg) August 20, 2020
Won’t allow Ashwin to do mankading while playing for DC – Ponting
Earlier, 45-year-old Ponting had said that he won’t allow the 33-year-old Indian bowler to even think about mankading as long as he is playing for the franchise from Delhi.
“Look, he’s a terrific bowler, and he’s done a great job in the IPL for a long period of time now, but I must admit watching that last season, as soon as it happened and he did that, I actually sat our boys down and said ‘Look, I know he’s done it, there’ll be others around the tournament who’ll think about doing this well but that’s not going to be the way that we play our cricket. We won’t be doing that’.” Ponting had said on The Grade Cricketer Podcast.