Picture Credit: Twitter
Tushar Deshpande, the leading wicket-taker for Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League 2023 season, has hit back at a Twitter troll for calling him a run machine with the ball in hand. The 28-year-old fast bowler has been a massive positive for CSK in this year’s edition of the tournament, picking up 21 wickets in 15 matches at an economy of 9.77 to help his side reach their 10th IPL final in 14 attempts.
The aforementioned Twitter user posted a picture on the platform, in which there were statistics of all Chennai bowlers who took the ball against Gujarat during the Qualifier 1 at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, to prove their point. They also mentioned in the tweet that Tushar Deshpande is a run machine who concedes minimum 40 runs in every bowling spell of his.
Shortly afterwards, to everyone’s surprise, the Mumbai-born pacer responded back to the troll’s tweet in the comments section. He shot back at the troll with an emphatic reply, which read, “Comment Only if you have the guts to step on to the field as a player yourself. I bet you can’t even cross the Boundary rope.”
During the Chennai Super Kings bowling innings, Tushar Deshpande was indeed the most expensive bowler as he conceded 43 runs off his four overs. But he did pick up the vital wicket of Rashid Khan from Gujarat Titans, to close out the match for CSK.
Earlier, on May 23, Chennai batted first in the Qualifier 1 to post a very competitive score of 172/7, thanks majorly to Ruturaj Gaikwad for his enterprising fifty on a tough batting pitch. In response, Gujarat struggled to keep pace with the required run rate throughout their run chase. Their best of batters succumbed to the pressure of the big match situation and got bowled out for 157 runs to hand a 15-run win to Chennai Super Kings at Chepauk.
