Ashwin’s strange bowling action in TNPL stumps cricket fans
After enjoying a fruitful county stint with Nottinghamshire, Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin is back to playing in the Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL) in India. And as always, he has a trick or two up his sleeves to enthral fans and spectators.
Ashwin is captaining the Dindigul Dragons in the tournament, who have kicked off their campaign with 2 wins in 2 matches. On Monday, the Dragons clinched a 30-run victory over the Madurai Panthers. In the final over of the match with 32 runs to defend, skipper Ashwin dismissed the dangerous Abhishek Tanwar on the first ball. With 8 wickets down, the Panthers were only completing the final formalities. It was on the last ball of the over that Ashwin unleashed his mystery ball and ended up getting another wicket.
Here’s a video of Ashwin’s bizarre bowling action posted by the official TNPL twitter handle:
My experiments with the ball – Ft. @ashwinravi99!
What would you name this delivery?!#TNPL2019 #NammaPasangaNammaGethu pic.twitter.com/bHEgXY51ZU
— TNPL (@TNPremierLeague) July 23, 2019
In the video, Ashwin is seen hiding his bowling arm and the ball behind his back. With the non-bowling hand absolutely motionless, he flung the ball with zero speed to surprise the batsman. The batsman, Kiran Akash was stunned by the flight and aimed to clear the ropes for a boundary. Unfortunately for him, the fielder at long-on caught the ball and Ashwin ended up with a wicket.
The off-spinner has come up with similar antics in the past. It’s no surprise that cricket fans on Twitter are left bemused by his new action.
Here are some of the reactions on Twitter:
Ashwin IS doing to Cricket rules what Taxation experts do with INCOME TAX RULES. Finding different ways to challenge them and use it for benefit of own. https://t.co/tl7dNHG0js
— ABHISEK (@lafdebaazz) July 22, 2019
Not everyone had the same opinion. Some fans saw the brighter side of it.
Ashwin and his innovations better than The Hundred.pic.twitter.com/wHZ4o0Swlb
— Rohit Sankar (@imRohit_SN) July 23, 2019
The one thing I like about Ashwin that he doesn’t give a damn about what others think about his game…
We don’t have a lot of characters like him in cricket#TNPL #Ashwin https://t.co/3K4UUlP0I2— Lipsa Sharma (@Shristiiiiiiiii) July 22, 2019
