Shashi Tharoor.
Credit: PTI Photo
Congress leader Shashi Tharoor is known to be a cricket buff and quite often he posts on social media about the game and its intricacies.
But on Thursday (October 23), he literally bowled a wrong 'un on social media about non-selection of Kuldeep Yadav in the India vs Australia match following which he was trolled left, right and centre.
With India going into the second One-day International (ODI) against Australia at Adelaide with the same XI that played the previous game at Perth, chinaman bowler Kuldeep Yadav was left out again.
Kuldeep's omission from the playing XI had become a topic of discussion as the Men in Blue preferred fast bowler Harshit Rana (whose selection had already created a lot of furore) over the spinner, who has been a genuine match-winner in ODI format.
Tharoor too weighed in his opinion, though he got the context completely wrong. When Australian fast bowler Xavier Bartlett blew away the Indian top order, Tharoor apparently mistook him for a spinner and posted on X saying the team think tank had made a selection blunder by leaving out a spinner like Kuldeep and picking a fast bowler like Harshit instead.
"So Xavier Bartlett took just four balls to show the Indian selectors the idiocy of their decision to leave out the most potent match-winner in their squad, @imkuldeep18, in favour of a journeyman pacer like Rana. It was wrong to omit Kuldeep in England & it is absurd not to pick him in Adelaide. Awful!," tweeted Tharoor.
His comments went viral on social media as as the keyboard warriors immediately started trolling him for his 'faux pas'.
"Xavier barlett is a fast bowler Kuldeep is a chinaman What did you have for drinks last night Shashi the hangover seems to have kicked in," commented one user.
Another used blasted Tharoor with a comment in Hindi, indirectly taking a dig at Tharoor's excessive use of vocabulary in his social media posts.
On the field, India cut a sorry figure though, losing the Adelaide ODI by two wickets and along with the three-match ODI series. They had the lost first ODI at Perth by seven wickets.
In the hindsight, India did genuinely miss Kuldeep, especially in the closing stages of the match as the Australian batters were seen struggling against the two finger spinners -- Axar Patel and Washington Sundar.
But beyond the boundary, it was Tharoor's 'gaffe' on social media which created headlines.