England all-rounder Ben Stokes was forced to issue a clarification following Ravichandran Ashwin's mankading controversy which overshadowed the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2019 match between Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) at Jaipur on Monday.
Stokes, 27, accidentally became a part of the debate after KXIP captain Ashwin used mankading to run Jos Buttler out. The dismissal raised fresh debate over the spirit of the game as the off-spinner didn't give the Englishman a prior warning.
Spin great Shane Warne, who is also the brand ambassador of RR, was not happy with the dismissal. Taking to Twitter, Warne made it clear in a series of posts that he was disappointed with the KXIP skipper and the dismissal was against the spirit of the game.
In one part, he asks if would it be okay if Ben Stokes mankaded Virat Kohli. And that's it. Everyone started tagging Stokes every time they shared something on mankading.
Stokes finally decided to answer the hypothetical question. Here's what he wrote:
Stokes failed to impress in the match. First, he conceded 48 runs for two wickets as KXIP set a 185-run target with Chris Gayle scoring 79 off 47 balls.
Stokes's stay in the crease didn't last long. He hit the first ball he faced for a six, then got out the very next delivery.
Royals suffered a 14-run defeat in the match.
