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Journalism of Courage
Pulling legs of others in the virtual world among cricketers is not new, especially when it comes to ace Indian cricketer Virender Sehwag who often teases his colleagues. But when such joke turns into an ugly affair is something that cannot be predicted. Herschelle Gibbs tried to joke about Ravichandran Ashwin’s running. Whether it was meant as a friendly jibe or to rile the Indian off-spinner — it surely did the latter. Ashwin came with a comeback that hasn’t be liked by others. Responding to the South African player, the Indian spinner adopted a combative approach and went on to refer to the former batsman’s match-fixing scandal from 2000.
Promoting a new running shoes for athleticwear brand, Ashwin tweeted how comfortable they were and wrote, “Undoubtedly, the best running shoes I’ve stepped into, can’t wait to flaunt them.”
To which Gibbs responded saying, “Hopefully you will be able to run a bit faster now ashwin “.
https://twitter.com/hershybru/status/965515311834390528
However, this irked the Indian bowler and he retorted saying, “Surely not as fast as you did mate, unfortunately I wasn’t as blessed as you were. But I was blessed with a wonderfully ethical mind not to fix games which put food on my plate.” Realising his curt reply could trigger a controversy, he quickly deleted the tweet. But by then the ever-vigilant Twitterati were quicky to take photos of his tweet and it started doing rounds on the microblogging site.
https://twitter.com/DennisCricket_/status/965547032394874880
Although Gibbs did not participate in the spat and maintained his cool and few fans of Gibbs and cricket writers slammed Ashwin for his bitter reply and called it uncalled for. Others dealt the situation with sarcasm. Soon jokes and punny tweets with Ashwin’s name started flooding the social media platform. Sample these.
https://twitter.com/daniel86cricket/status/965544632787591170
https://twitter.com/Nesenag/status/965526293490974720
https://twitter.com/poisonaavi/status/965535886157819904
https://twitter.com/PUNchayati/status/965533618431930368
https://twitter.com/HitmanCricket/status/965540970996617216
https://twitter.com/baesquets05/status/965527516105633792
Ashwin later sent out another tweet to coverup, the damage was already done. “I totally believed my reply was a joke too, but look how people and yourself perceived it. I am totally game for this sort of fun mate, we shall dine over this sometime,” he tweeted. And after he was called out on Twitter for the bitter tweet, he even explained why he pulled it down.
However, there were also some who came forward to support Ashwin.
https://twitter.com/FlawedSenorita/status/965593428091273217
Gibbs was implicated in the match-fixing scandal during South Africa’s tour of India in 2000. The team was led by Hansie Cronje and he played the leadership role in the conversation with the bookies.
