Read: Ravichandran Ashwin takes a clever dig at James Anderson’s comments on the Mankad-rule

Fans and fraternity have reacted in different ways to Afghan spinner Noor Ahmad’s Mankad-ing incident. Some, like the Afghan under-19 captain himself, Farhan Zakhil, outright claimed the action to be against the spirit of the game. Others have been critical about the batsmen and their lack of game-awareness, which creates Mankad-like situations in the first place.

Amongst this divided circle, England fast-bowler James Anderson also decided to weigh in his two-cents on the situation. Little did he know that his actions would come around to taunt him, in the most unprecedented of fashions. India’s premier test-match off-spinner, Ravichandran Ashwin,  came up with a reply that hilariously mocked Anderson for his past actions. 

Anderson’s opinion on the matter

Anderson took to Twitter, where he blatantly proposed to remove the controversial Mankad-ing law. Anderson’s comments, concise yet crisp, suggested that the pacer does not support the controversial Mankad-rule. His ‘shredder’ video, for one thing, strongly establishes this sentiment. Last year, Anderson had reacted to Ravichandran Ashwin running-out Jos Buttler in an IPL match. In that game, Ashwin had paused mid-way through his run-up to dislodge the bails off the non-strikers’ stumps. He claimed Butler had inched forward from his crease; the on-field replays confirmed his claim. A well-set Butler had to walk back as Punjab made a strong comeback to win the match. 

Ashwin had to cop a lot of flack for his actions. A number of fans questioned his ethics about the spirit of the game; the r/cricket sub-reddit community even dubbed him with the sarcastic nick-name ‘ethical-mind’. Anderson, however, went a step ahead of the verbal methods. Making an appearance in the BBC’s Test Match Special podcast, Anderson took a photo of Ashwin and passed it through a shredder, ripping it to bits. Later he did acknowledge that everything was done in good-spirit and the video was only a joke. 

Ash strikes back

Turns out, Ashwin eventually found his way to have the last laugh. Highlighting the comment, the Tamil-Nadu off-spinner came up with a humorous-reply; making a witty reference to the shredder-video.