R Ashwin ACCUSES Rishabh Pant Of Humiliating Digvesh Rathi By Withdrawing Mankad Appeal Vs Jitesh Sharma
Photo : AP/PTI
The Spirit of Cricket debate once again came to the forefront during the final IPL 2025 league match between Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). In the 17th over of the second innings, LSG spinner Digvesh Rathi attempted to Mankad RCB captain Jitesh Sharma as he took off the stumps in the non-striker's end seeing the opportinity of him leaving his crease. However, captain Rishabh Pant withdrew the appeal, earning massive plaudits from netizens. Legendary spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who himself infamously Mankaded Jos Buttler during IPL 2019, did not mince words as he criticized Rishabh Pant for withdrawing the appeal.
In a video on his YouTube channel Ash Ki Baat, R Ashwin said that the captain's job is to back the player, and the decision of pulling away an appeal should have been discussed before.
“Captain’s job is actually to back a player. A captain’s job is not to make a bowler feel small. By making this decision of pulling away an appeal, ye pehle karna chahiye tha," Ashwin said.
He even recalled the IPL 2020 campaign, when R Ashwin was playing for Delhi Capitals, head coach Ricky Ponting had strictly told the team before the tournament started that no one will run out a batter in the non-striker's end. Hence, they followed it strictly. But here, he thought, there was no such clarity.
'Humiliation For Digvesh Rathi'
R Ashwin further went on to say that the withdrawal of the appeal was actually a humiliation for Digvesh Rathi in front of crores of people. He also said that a bowler like him would feel s small that he would never do it again
“We don’t know if they discussed, but let’s stop this vilification of that youngster in front of crores and crores of people. Do we do that to anybody else? Why does a bowler look small? It is actually a humiliation," he said.
“So what happens is a bowler feels so small that he will never do that again. People will say that he should never do that (run out at the non-striker’s end) again. Why should he not do that? It is actually not about the rule. The batsman taking an extra step gives him an opportunity to finish a two," the CSK spinner added.
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