Jaipur: Ravichandran Ashwin has no regrets about ‘Mankading’ Jos Buttler during the IPL-XII clash between his Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) here Monday against Rajasthan Royals (RR) as he feels batsmen ‘need to be wary’ of leaving the crease early to avoid game-changing moments like these. Buttler incidentally is the first batsman in IPL history to have been dismissed in such a style. The incident happened during the 13th over of the innings when RR were batting.
The dismissal raised fresh debate over the spirit of the game as the off-spinner didn’t give the Englishman a prior warning. But Ashwin said he was completely within his rights to execute such a dismissal, which completely turned the match in KXIP’s favour.
“No real argument on that and it was pretty instinctive,” Ashwin said after KXIP beat Rajasthan by 14 runs. “I didn’t even load and he just left the crease. We ended on the right side of the coin, but I definitely think that those are game-changing moments and batsmen need to be wary of it.”
The KXIP skipper lauded his bowlers for bringing the team back into the contest. “We all know that after six overs it is going to slow down. Credit to bowlers on how they bowled. I have been working on a lot of variations, pretty happy that it came out,” Ashwin informed.
“Sam (Curran) had a bad day with the ball, but he came back well. Everybody ticked their boxes. We do have a few options amongst us, but if we can have good five overs, there is nothing like it,” he added.
RR skipper Ajinkya Rahane refused to comment on the controversial dismissal and left it on the match referee to take a call on the issue. “We are not supposed to comment on a controversial issue. The match referee will take the call. We will take the decision sportingly,” stated Rahane when asked about the dismissal.
Rahane too praised the opposition bowlers for restricting his side, especially after a superb start to the chase.”But Kings XI bowled really well in the last three overs. When you are chasing 180 plus, someone has to go really hard,” he pointed out.
PTI
