Two former cricketers hailing from India and England — Wasim Jaffar and Michael Vaughan, share a healthy rivalry on social media, notably on Twitter. The news of the Indian Punjab League (IPL) franchise Punjab Kings (PBKS) appointing Wasim Jaffar as the batting coach had Vaughan commenting on the post as a riposte.
Vaughan's reaction was in a sarcastic tone with a snide comment where he dredged up an incident that occurred between the two on the field. PBKS took to Twitter to confirm the appointment of the batting coach in Jaffar, “The one you had been waiting for, introducing our Batting Coach, Wasim Jaffer! Reply with a meme to welcome the King!,” Punjab Kings posted on Twitter.
Vaughan couldn’t help but take a jibe at the news with a reply on his Twitter where he mocks dismissing Wasim in one of their previous matches. In his entire career, Vaughan "Someone who got out to me is a batting coach !!!!!!!!!!!!" said Vaughan on Twitter.
See the tweet below:
This ruffled the feathers of the former Indian batter as it drew ire from the fans as well, with some reminding him of the past when he was dismissed by Ricky Ponting and once blocked the ball with his hands while batting in a Test match against India. Both cricket pundits are now famous to take the mickey out of each other with neither of them holding any punches in lampooning one other.
PBKS have transitioned in leaps and bounds which is not only limited to the members of the franchise on the sidelines but also have let go of players which include the skipper Mayank Agarwal. Along with Mayank, the PBKS have also released West Indies allrounder Odean Smith, Prerak Mankad, Writtick Chatterjee, Ishan Porel, Vaibhav Arora, Benny Howell and Sandeep Sharma with Shikhar Dhawan as the new captain. They have a purse of Rs 32.2 crores remaining for IPL 2023 auction.
The list of the players retained by the franchise is given below:
Players retained: Shikhar Dhawan (captain), Arshdeep Singh, Atharva Taide, Baltej Singh, Bhanuka Rajapaksa (wicketkeeper), Harpreet Brar, Jitesh Sharma (wicketkeeper), Jonny Bairstow (wicketkeeper), Kagiso Rabada, Liam Livingstone, Nathan Ellis, Prabhsimran Singh (wicketkeeper), Rahul Chahar, Raj Bawa, Rishi Dhawan, Shahrukh Khan
