Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin is enjoying his cricket. One can tell, with the phenomenal bowling figures from his stint in English county cricket this year. Back home now for the Tamil Nadu Premier League, he has managed to keep the momentum going.
The tournament opener between Dindigul Dragons and Chepauk Super Gillies on Friday went down to the wire, with the former winning by 10 runs.
Ashwin's Dindigul Dragons managed only 115 runs for the loss of nine wickets at the end of its 20 overs with the skipper himself coming up the order to bat at number three. His 19-ball 37 helped anchor the Dragons to a three-digit score.
READ : TNPL 2019: Silambarasan takes four as Dindigul beats Gillies in opener
The asking rate for the chasing Super Gillies came down to 27 runs needed off two deliveries. This is when Ashwin decided to pull a fast one on the batsman, leaving both those on the pitch and off it confused.
He delivered the ball without a full action as his non-bowling arm remained unmoved and he completed the run-up by releasing the ball on his left foot.
This unusual action by the 32-year-old almost got him the wicket as the batsman seemed to have no clue how the ball was going to go, eventually missing the stumps by a whisker.
The legality of his delivery has been fervently debated by fans of the game online. As the rules of the game go, a delivery is fair as long as the bowler doesn't throw the ball. Twitter meanwhile is divided, with bemused fans questioning legality and others lauding the bowler's ability to bring in variations and fun into the innings, at that stage of the game.
He bowled in a similar manner against Madurai Panthers on Monday and managed to get a wicket of L Kiran Akash in the process.
This isn't the first time Ashwin has been cheeky out in the middle. During the Indian Premier League this year, he got flak for 'mankading' Jos Buttler.
With inputs from IANS
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