NEW DELHI: Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin recently found himself in a humorous situation when a person impersonating Australian cricketer Adam Zampa contacted him on WhatsApp, asking for the phone numbers of several Indian players.Ashwin shared screenshots of the conversation on Instagram, captioning it “Fake Adam Zampa tries to strike.” The post quickly went viral, with fans loving Ashwin’s sharp and witty replies to the impersonator.
The fake Zampa asked Ashwin for the contact details of players such as Abhishek Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Sanju Samson, Jitesh Sharma, Rinku Singh, and Shivam Dube. Ashwin decided to play along, joking that he would send the list and asking if those names were enough.
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He then turned the tables by asking the impersonator if he had MS Dhoni’s number. When the fake Zampa replied that he did, Ashwin requested the number in return. The chat ended on a hilarious note, with Ashwin quipping that he was “Compiling in Excel” when the impersonator again pressed for the contacts.
This wasn’t Ashwin’s first brush with online impostors. He revealed a similar incident involving someone pretending to be his former Chennai Super Kings teammate Devon Conway.
“After the IPL got over, one guy messaged me, claiming to be Devon Conway, ‘Hi buddy, how are you?’ and I also responded, ‘We’ll stay in touch. You’re playing in MLC; I’ll watch the games.’ He then asked, ‘I’ve lost Virat Kohli’s number, can you share it?’ I thought, why is he asking for Virat’s number? I thought I should ask him, but I didn’t want Devon Conway to misunderstand. Then I picked up Virat Kohli’s card and gave him a different number,” Ashwin shared on his YouTube channel.In a separate development, Ashwin recently defended pacer Harshit Rana after earlier questioning his inclusion in India’s ODI squad against Australia.“I have always reiterated that no player should be attacked below the belt. When the attack becomes too personal, the genre changes. I would like to talk about Sanjay Manjrekar, who has criticised me throughout my career. But I have never held any grudge against him. What they say might be right or wrong, as long as the criticism doesn’t get personal, I am fine with it,” Ashwin stated on his YouTube channel.Ashwin also voiced his concern over the psychological toll of harsh social media criticism on young players.“Assume Harshit sees the reel in which he is being harshly criticised, and he is about to play a match for India, wouldn’t he be shattered by this? And if his parents and friends see it, what will be their mindset? We can definitely criticise their skill, their style of cricket and the trade that they are plying. But it shouldn’t get personal. It may be funny once or twice, but it shouldn’t be a running theme. The reason they are doing this is that there is an audience for it. Negativity sells these days. They sell whatever is in demand. We should avoid consuming such content,” he added.
