Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan gave a fitting reply to former England captain Andrew Flintoff’s jibe at him, in which he had taken a sarcastic dig at the acting legend for his tweet in 2016.
In 2016, during the ICC T20 World Cup in India, Virat Kohli had played one of the all-time greatest T20I knocks in a virtual knockout game against Australia to put India into the semi-finals of the tournament. Reacting to that, Flintoff had tweeted that ‘at this rate, Kohli will be as good as Root one day’.
Amitabh Bachchan had not taken Flintoff’s tweet kindly and had retorted saying, “@flintoff11 @imVkohli @root66 @englandcricket Root who ? जड़ से उखाड़ देंगे Root ko ..!!!”
Moving forward to 2021, England pummeled the Indian bowling in the first innings of the first Test match in Chennai, as Joe Root hit 218 in his 100th Test match as England put over 500 runs on the board.
Flintoff took the opportunity after five years to take out the tweet and wrote, “With the greatest respect, this aged well.”
However, the Indian team fought back valiantly in the second Test match, also played in Chennai. After winning the toss, India put on 329 runs thanks to Rohit Sharma’s 161 and bowled England out for 134 in the first innings thanks to R Ashwin’s 5/43, earning a lead of 195 runs.
In the second innings, India made 286 runs with Ashwin making 106 and Virat Kohli making 62, and set England a target of 482 runs to win the match and go 2-0 up in the four-match series. However, Akshar Patel picked 5/60 in his Test debut and Ashwin added 3 more wickets to his tally, as England managed just 164 runs in the second innings, losing the match by 317 runs.
Amitabh Bachchan took to Twitter and posted a sly dig at Andrew Flintoff mentioning Joe Root once more in his congratulatory tweet for the Indian team on their victory.
Bachchan tweeted, “T 3816 - Yeeeeeaaaaahhhh and YEEEEAAAAAHHHHH ! India Wins by 317 runs .. I mean 317 runs in a Test .. that is INCREDIBLE !जड़ें तो पहले ही उखाड़ दी थीं ; अब उन्हें उखाड़ के सुखा भी दिया है ! INDIA INDIA INDIA !!!”
The two teams will now meet in the third Test to be played in Motera, Ahmedabad in a day-night, pink ball affair starting from February 24 onwards.
