1. If there is anyone who knows what a super over (and its pain) means, it’s New Zealand players. So when someone made a meme on Jimmy Neesham, who was unperturbed during a close finish in a recent IPL game, this was his response. 

Also, this one. The hurt!

2. Last year, R Ashwin’s makading of Jos Buttler was followed by a huge controversy. So this time when RCB’s Aaron Finch was in the same position, he spared the batsman but didn’t forget to tweet about it.

Good for Finch, because if he were on strike, the wicketkeeper could have dismissed him twice. He went that far.

3. Pakistani cricketers have a tendency to make absurd statements. Like Abdul Razzaq calling Jasprit Bumrah a ‘baby bowler’ he could have easily thrashed. This obviously led to a furor on social media, but there was one tweet that stood out: Irfan Pathan’s. 

He had been in the same situation at the start of his career and decided to give it back to Razzaq. Without taking his name, of course.

4. Ashes is known to bring out the most aggressive side of the England and Australian cricket teams. And most of it is courtesy of their fans. This reply from Stuart Broad from 2013 is an example of the same.

One can’t know what all is said on the field but it’s safe to assume that this heated exchange isn’t even the worst.

5. Back in 2012, MS Dhoni used to engage with fans on social media, and his demeanor was the same as it is now. Here’s looking back at him nicely telling a person that ‘hate’ is too big a word, but they can dislike him, no problem with that.

6. For a country that won the cricket World Cup as recently as a few years ago, English people sure have had some nasty stuff to say about India. For instance, Piers Morgan making fun of us for celebrating 2 medals in 2016 Olympics. To which, Virender Sehwag responded by tweeting:

Now, those who know Piers, also know that he doesn’t give up. So he went on to say:

Hi @virendersehwag, I bet you 1 million rupees to charity that England wins a ODI World Cup before India wins an Olympic Gold. Accept?

Obviously, he forgot that India has won 9 gold medals in the past. But people reminded him alright, making him delete his tweet and post a new one.

So then Sehwag said this.

 It doesn’t make sense but we are on his side of course.

7. Things didn’t end there. In 2017, the England women’s cricket team won the cricket World Cup by defeating India in the final. Piers, who was waiting for an opportunity like this, came back raging at Sehwag.

Sehwag, to his credit, was very calm and sensible in his response.

8. A similar (read long) Twitter fight ensued between Aakash Chopra, Damien Fleming and Brad Hodge. It goes on and on, I’ll try not to fuck up the sequence. 

So Brad came up with a list of players for the ‘ultimate T20 XI’. These were all cricketers who never played T20s.

As you can see, the list did not have a single Indian, and Aakash pointed that out. 

To which, a jumpy Fleming responded by tweeting.

Brad also decided to make fun of Aakash by indirectly calling him a boring player.

But the best was yet to come. The two didn’t know that Aakash has, in fact, played T20s. He was with KKR in 2008 and 2009, and sure his stint was forgettable, but if you are going to be ‘straight-forward’, you cannot afford to be careless.

So in the end, Aakash won, it was lovely and everyone went home.

9. R Ashwin, though a blessing for Indian cricket as a bowler, isn’t the best runner. Hence, when he posted a tweet about new Nike shoes, Herschelle Gibbs decided to poke some fun and things got very serious, very soon. 

This was Gibbs joke on Ashwin’s tweet.

Which wasn’t appreciated by the spinner at all, and he responded by writing (Gibbs had been a part of a fixing controversy before):

Surely not as fast you did mate, unfortunately, I wasn’t as blessed as you were. But I was blessed with a wonderfully ethical mind not to fix games which put food on my plate.

Anyway, realising that he may have taken things a little too far, Ashwin deleted the tweet. But by then, Gibbs had noticed it, and he just stepped away from the whole situation. Meanwhile Ashwin tried to explain how his was also a joke and it should be taken in stride. 

10. I’ll end this with a cheeky response from Naseer Hussain on a picture of Ganguly on the Lord’s balcony.

Not the ones to give up.