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Indian and Rajasthan Royals veteran off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin handed his support to the current Mumbai Indians skipper Hardik Pandya during his YouTube live chat with cricket expert Prasanna Agoram. It came after the continuous trolling and fuming by fans of the Indian all-rounder since the beginning of the 17th edition of the Indian Premier League.
Answering a question by a user asking the duo about the MI management’s stepping up on the constant booing of Hardik Pandya during the MI match, he said, “Neither has any role to play. Neither the franchise nor the player has a role to play in this at all. I think the responsibility and the onus lies on the fans.”
Since the Mumbai Indians decided to replace Rohit with Hardik before the ongoing IPL season, the 30-year-old has been a victim of vicious trolling and abuse by the ardent fans of the five-time IPL champions franchise. Adding to it, MI got off to the worst possible start this season after losing both the matches they played which sparked the anger.
Calling out the fan wars “very ugly,” Ashwin exclaimed, “Have you seen this happen in any other country? Have you seen Joe Root and Zak Crawley fans fight? It’s crazy. Have you seen Steve Smith and Pat Cummins fans fight in Australia? I’ve said this many times. This is cricket. This is a cinema culture. Fans wars should never go in this ugly a route.”
He further draws a comparison of the captaincy saga with India’s formidable three Sachin, Saurav, and Dravid, “Ganguly played under Sachin and vice versa. These two have both played under Rahul Dravid’s captaincy. These three have played under Anil Kumble and all of them have played under Dhoni.”
He further said that this is a real-time sport and it does have real-time emotions, “We need to get out act together. (Do) You know what the problem is? We are all happy to sit in our houses, look outside, and (have) someone else pick up the trash. We don’t want to bother doing it ourselves. We should correct ourselves first. This is real-time sports. Real-time sports have real-time emotions.”