Former Indian leg-spinner Laxman Sivaramakrishnan went on a Ravichandran Ashwin bashing spree on his X account, formerly known as Twitter. Sivaramakrishnan posted a photo of Ashwin's bowling action and pointed out flaws in it on September 29. He claimed that he received a lot of hate on social media following the post. While replying to trolls, he even went on to call Ashwin a "selfish stats player" and “most unfit cricketer”.
“This picture has gone viral on SM. Enlarge the image and you notice his non bowling arm and upper body has opened up towards the offside. If you look at his lower body is closed. This leads to lack of synchronisation. Ash quickly needs to correct this to be more effective,” the 55-year-old wrote on X.
The leg-spinner went on to say that "Indian batsman are struggling against spin because the pitches in India are doctored for Ashwin in Test matches. Look at his record in SENA countries."
After replying to a number of users who questioned his opinion about Ashwin, the 57-year-old revealed that the Tamil Nadu-born cricketer recently called him to discuss his bowling action and he was not impressed with the backlash received.
“Ravi Ashwin was nice enough to call me just a while ago to discuss his bowling action, he was as shocked with the venom of the trolls as I was. Also clarified that the people involved are in NO WAY connected to him. GOOD LUCK. Do us proud,” the Madras-born cricketer said.
Many users had also asked Sivaramakrishnan to offer his advice to Ashwin straightaway instead of posting it on social media. He said that he is not Ashwin’s bowling coach. Also, he claimed that he had helped Sachin Tendulkar counter Shane Warner in 1998.
Ashwin was recently included in the ODI squad as a replacement for an injured Axar Patel. The 37-year-old showed his mettle in the ODI series against Australia with four wickets from two games including a three-fer. As Patel failed to recover in time, Ashwin was the last-minute inclusion in the World Cup squad.
MORE ON SPORTS TAK:
Watch: Mitchell Starc sounds alarm bells for India, takes hat-trick against Netherlands in warm-up game
