IPL 2022 Auction: Ashwin, Buttler in same team 3 years after Mankading saga

Rajasthan Royals on Saturday won the bidding war for
Ravichandran Ashwin for Rs 5 crore. This means both Ashwin and Jos Buttler, who
was retained by the Royals for Rs 10 crore along with Sanju Samson and Yashasvi
Jaiswal, will now be playing for the same team.

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Ashwin and Buttler were involved in one of the
fiercest battles on field after the Indian spinner ‘Mankaded’ the Englishman in the 2019 season of IPL when he was playing for Punjab Kings (then
Kings XI Punjab). Following the incident, Ashwin faced criticism from current
and former English cricketers.

A year after the controversial incident, Ashwin had
cheekily shared a picture of him ‘Mankading’ Buttler to advise people to not
“wander out” when the first nationwide lockdown was imposed, owing to the
COVID-19 pandemic.

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As Ashwin will now be sharing the dressing room with
Buttler, former India cricketer Virender Sehwag could not resist himself from
reacting. He took to his official Twitter handle to write, “Haha Ashwin to
Rajasthan. Will love him plotting a Mankad with Buttler”.

“Ashwin and Buttler in the same team. No more
discussions about mythical ‘Spirit of the Game’ #IPLMegaAuction,” wrote cricket
analyst Aakash Chopra.

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After Rajasthan Royals bought Ashwin, team CEO Jake
Lush McCrum revealed that the team management has already spoken to Buttler
before bidding for Ashwin. Royals wanted to get the nod from Buttler before
bidding for Ashwin.

“We spoke to Jos prior to the auction and talked
through all our prioritisation on players. Honestly he didn’t even think about
it. I had to bring it up and he said he’s absolutely fine. Maybe he has to
practice in the nets with him but otherwise on the field, they are looking forward
to playing together,” said McCrum.

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Now, three years after that controversial incident
both wicket-keeper batter Buttler and Ashwin will share the same dressing room
and share inputs to get the batters out.