India vs South Africa: Twitter slams Ruturaj Gaikwad for 'disrespectful gesture' towards groundsman

In recent times, a lot of names from the young Indian brigade been at the centre of controversies regarding their on-field attitude. Players like Riyan Parag, Harshal Patel, Rishabh Pant and Devdutt Padikkal had created much buzz with their behaviour during the latest season of the Indian Premier League. But this time, India opener Ruturaj Gaikwad has been slammed by internet users after the fifth T20 International match against South Africa. With the 5-match series standing at 2-2, the match at Bangalore’s M Chinnaswamy Stadium was set to be the decider. But pre-monsoon showers washed out the game. Winning the toss, South Africa’s stand-in skipper Keshav Maharaj invited the Men in Blue to bat first. But only 3.3 overs were bowled and India went two-man down for just 28 runs during the period. Watch:  

Before the match was disrupted due to rain, the Indian opening pair of Ishan Kishan and Ruturaj Gaikwad was already in the pavilion. While Kishan scored a 7-ball 15, Gaikwad only managed to score 10 runs in 12 deliveries. The incident happened during the break when Gaikwad was sitting in the dugout. A groundsman went to Gaikwad to take a selfie with the 25-year-old batter. But Gaikwad seemed  uninterested as he gestured to the man to keep his distance. But the man wanted to capture a moment with the batter was trying to click a photo with his mobile. Then Gaikwad turned his face to the other side and looked away. The moment, which was recorded by television cameras, did not go unnoticed by cricket enthusiasts. The video of the incident went viral and several users found Gaikwad’s attitude ‘disrespectful’. However, some people assumed Gaikwad may have kept his distance because of the COVID-19 scenario in the country. Some fans also referred to the senior members of the squad like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma who have shown respectful behaviour towards the ground staff. One of the users commented, “Worst Behavior, Ruturaj Gaikwad. They are unsung heroes and treating them like this is very disrespectful.” Another said, “Why the heck is Ruturaj Gaikwad behaving like this with ground staff? Just for a selfie, he is being arrogant towards him. This kind of behaviour is really unacceptable in a gentleman’s game.” The right-handed batter failed to produce any significant performance in the series, and recorded 96 runs in five games. Among them, the best score came in the third T20I when he fetched a half-century, scoring 57 runs in 35 deliveries. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.