He might have received flak for his on-field antics against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), but Delhi Capitals (DC) spinner Ravichandra Ashwin feels it was uncalled for Eoin Morgan and Tim Southee to give him a send-off during the IPL match last week.
Media and some of the former cricketers had targetted Ashwin for taking an extra run off the last delivery of the 19th over when the ball thrown by the fielder ricocheted off Rishabh Pant's arm.
In the last over of DC’s innings, Ashwin was dismissed by Southee for 9 and it was then the pacer and the KKR skipper gave the off-spinner a fierce send-off, leading to a heated exchange between them.
"Look, I think it is definitely not a personal battle or one-on-one battle. Personally, I would not deem it like that. People who want attention may be taking it that way, but I am not looking it that way at all. The incident that happened the other day was, I got really charged up because that was entirely untoward by both Tim Southee and Eoin Morgan to give the batter a sendoff who just got out," said Ashwin while replying to an ANI query during a virtual post-match press conference.
"The worst situation was that I was not aware that the ball had hit Rishabh so I just felt like that they already decided to have a go at me. That is one of the reasons I said that the words which were used were not in the right direction and not in the right space. Beyond that, we need to understand that culturally people are different, the way people are brought up to play cricket in England and India, the way one thinks is completely different," he added.
Further talking about the spirit of cricket, Ashwin said: "I would not say anyone is wrong here, it is just that the sort of way the game was played in the 1940s cannot be the way that you want somebody else to apply it. My two cents to this are that you want to play the game in the way you want to, but do not expect that if it is not within the laws of the game and have a go at them for unnecessary reasons."
Earlier, Ashwin had clarified his stand over the heated altercation with a series of tweets. The veteran campaigner wrote that he stood for himself and Morgan and Southee can stick to what they believe is right or wrong without taking a moral high ground and using derogatory words.
Coming to Ashwin’s IPL team Delhi Capitals, they have already qualified to the playoffs and defeated Chennai Super Kings (CSK) by three wickets on Monday (October 4) to reclaim the top position on the points table.
DC will take on Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in their last league match on Friday (October 8) in Dubai.
(With ANI inputs)
