{"id":728943,"date":"2026-01-29T16:35:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T16:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/728943\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T16:35:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T16:35:19","slug":"r-ashwin-spoke-to-virat-kohli-after-being-accused-of-indirect-attack-thanks-for-giving-us-a-reason-to-bond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/728943\/","title":{"rendered":"R Ashwin \u2018spoke to\u2019 Virat Kohli after being accused of \u2018indirect attack\u2019: \u2018Thanks for giving us a reason to bond\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ravichandran Ashwin<\/a> and Virat Kohli<\/a> go back a long way. Both made their Test debuts the same year in 2011, and for the better part of the last decade, Ashwin became Kohli\u2019s No. 1 spinner. Under Kohli, Ashwin rose through the ranks, emerging as India\u2019s second-highest wicket-taker in Tests. Think of the numerous memorable moments the two have been part of. Winning that iconic Test series in Australia for the first time in 2018, dominating teams on home soil with Ashwin wreaking havoc, winning the ICC Test mace five years in a row and reaching the final of the World Test Championship\u2026 the memories are plenty.<\/p>\n

\"ViratVirat Kohli (left) and Ravichandran Ashwin (AFP)<\/p>\n

Ashwin and Kohli even announced their Test retirements only a few months apart. During their time playing for India, it was reported that Ashwin and Kohli perhaps don\u2019t see eye to eye, especially due to the former captain\u2019s reluctance to play the spinner in overseas Tests. However, it mustn\u2019t be forgotten that during Ashwin\u2019s final moments in the Indian dressing room, he shared a heartwarming hug with Kohli, before confirming he was retiring from international cricket.<\/p>\n

Ashwin targetted by troll<\/p>\n

Ashwin has often been at the receiving end of social media trolling. In a post accusing Ashwin of \u2018indirectly attacking\u2019 Kohli, the legendary India spinner wrote on X that he actually called up Kohli to discuss the incident and ended up having a good laugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust spoke to Virat about concern on the indirect attack, and we both had a good laugh about how social media works on such clickbait fan wars. Thanks for giving us a reason to bond and talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fan wars are nothing new on social media. Keyboard warriors routinely keep the internet divided over their favourite cricketers. The most prominent among Indian fan battles are those between Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli supporters, with neither side willing to miss an opportunity to berate the other. Similar wars have long existed among Kohli and Sachin Tendulkar fans, as well as those between Kohli and MS Dhoni supporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ravichandran Ashwin and Virat Kohli go back a long way. Both made their Test debuts the same year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":728944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[167714,216779,1406,216778,85664,50485,79,16,15,4221],"class_list":{"0":"post-728943","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-ashwin","9":"tag-ashwin-kohli","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-koh","12":"tag-r-ashwin","13":"tag-ravichandran-ashwin","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-virat-kohli"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115979362238690121","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=728943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/728943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=728943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=728943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=728943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}