An attempt at trolling Ravichandran Ashwin went wrong for Herschelle Gibbs as the Indian off-spinner took offense at the jibe and retorted with a reminder about the match-fixing scandal in 2000.

A harmless promotional tweet by Ashwin triggered a Twitter war in 2018 that social media users wouldn’t easily forget. It began when Ashwin put out a tweet on a new pair of running shoes by Nike.

The South African was quick to swoop into the comments section with a dig at Ashwin’s running abilities. Gibbs commented that he hoped the new shoes will help Ashwin “run a bit faster”.

The banter did not go down well with the Indian as he quote tweeted it with a taunt at Gibbs’ involvement in the match-fixing scandal in 2000.

Gibbs was fined and suspended by Cricket South Africa for six months after he admitted to agreeing to underperform in an ODI spearheaded by the then South Africa skipper Hansie Cronje on an India tour in 2000.

“I wasn’t as blessed as you were. But I was blessed with a wonderfully ethical mind not to fix games which put food on my plate,” Ashwin tweeted.

Gibbs chose to not turn it into a full-fledged Twitter war and replied that he clearly meant it as a joke.

With his tweet not going down well with social media users, Ashwin diffused the situation by tweeting that he was “game for this sort of fun”.

 

However, Ashwin later deleted the tweet that appeared like a dig at Gibbs after he received flak for the original tweet and the follow-up one that according to many did not seem like a joke.

He put out another tweet stating “what’s sensitive to me isn’t to someone else, and what’s sensitive to you isn’t to me” after he deleted the tweet that had sparked the controversy.

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Herschelle GibbsRavichandran Ashwin