It looks like Ravichandran Ashwin’s sense of humour has gone for a toss. A healthy joke from former South African cricketer Herschelle Gibbs didn’t go down well with the Indian off spinner, and ended up responding with a fixing jibe aimed at Gibbs.
The whole episode erupted when Ashwin posted a video on Twitter to promote a Nike's new range of running shoes. Taking a dig at Ashwin’s fitness, Gibbs replied, “Hopefully you will be able to run a bit faster now Ashwin 😂.”
Ashwin, who evidently wasn’t impressed by the tweet, went a little overboard with his reply. Ashwin tweeted, “Surely not as fast 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.”
Gibbs was quick to realise that joke had gone out of hand and thus decide to end the banter, but not before accusing Ashwin of not being sporting enough, “Can’t take a joke I see😉 anyway moving swiftly on..”
Later on, Ashwin too realised that he had overreacted and tried diffusing the situation by concealing his snarky jibe as a joke as well. Ashwin said, “I am totally game for this sort of fun mate, we shall dine over this sometime.”
Herschelle Gibbs had reportedly admitted involvement in the match-fixing scandal of 2000, while his side was touring India.
Gibbs confessed before Kings Commission of Inquiry, constituted in South Africa to probe the scandal, that he was offered money by late South African cricketer Hansie Cronje for performing poorly during the tour.
Ashwin later pulled down his tweet, but it was too late by then, and came up with another tweet to explain his stand.
Twitterati took a dig at Ashwin’s for his lack of sense of humour, and called his reply ‘harsh’ and ‘personal’.
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