Ricky Ponting and I are socially distanced: Ravichandran Ashwin
On Tuesday, Ravichandran Ashwin took to Instagram to share a picture of Delhi Capitals skipper Shreyas Iyer and head coach Ricky Ponting greeting each other with elbow dabs. In the same picture, Ashwin can be seen looking at the duo from a distance. The 33-year-old captioned the picture, “@rickyponting and I are socially distanced. @shreyas41.”
Taking note, Iyer reacted to the post saying, “Pretty much @rashwin99.” To this, Ravichandran Ashwin cheekily said, “The skipper is making sure that peace is being made.”
A couple of days back, the former Australian captain had a strong-worded message for Ravichandran Ashwin, in which he said that he won’t allow the latter to ‘Mankad’ any batsman in the Indian Premier League (IPL) because it is against the spirit of the gentleman’s game. Ponting had added that he will be having a ‘hard conversation’ with the spinner about mankading.
Ravichandran Ashwin was traded to DC ahead of IPL 2020
Ashwin, whose mankading of Jos Buttler in IPL 2019 became a topic of debate, will be playing for the Delhi Capitals in IPL 2020. The experienced bowler captained Kings XI Punjab in the last season but was traded to the Delhi Capitals ahead of the 2020 edition of the tournament.
Ravichandran Ashwin is currently in UAE with the rest of his IPL team, which began training after completing the mandatory six-day quarantine period.
The wily off-spinner has spent a majority of his IPL career with Chennai Super Kings, before being signed up by the Rising Pune Supergiant and then Kings XI Punjab. His carrom ball and wicket-taking skill will be a huge asset to the Capitals, who are yet to win an IPL trophy.
Ravichandran Ashwin has played a total of 139 IPL games, from which he has 125 wickets, including a four-wicket haul. He has also been handy with the bat on a few occasions, having scored 375 runs which include 10 sixes and 32 fours.