The 23-year-old left-handed batsman from England—Ben Duckett—faced the heat on Twitter after he called Indian Premier League (IPL) 2018 franchise Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) a ‘joke’.
Duckett tweeted “RCB’s team is a joke #IPL”. Duckett’s reaction came after RCB were defeated in their opening IPL 2018 match against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens on April 9.
RCB’s team is a joke __ #IPL
— Ben Duckett (@BenDuckett1) 8 April 2018
KKR rode on Nitish Rana’s all-round show and Sunil Narine’s whirlwind 19-ball 50 to beat RCB by four wickets.
Duckett’s tweet, which seemed to target some of the iconic players in cricket like Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers and Brendon McCullum, didn’t go down well with Twitterati as they started bashing him on the social networking site. Here are some of the reactions:
Like Ur team… Ur team also never won odi Cricket worldcup, am I correct?????
— EhSalaCupNamadhe (@Upendra_18_VK) 8 April 2018
Just like your eng career!
— Partha Mukherjee (@viratian_partha) 8 April 2018
You’re the joke dude. Grow up and respect the greats, because you’ll never be one.
— ThePoppingCrease (@PoppingCreaseSA) 8 April 2018
Very similar to your batting against spin bowling _
— Jegan (@IamJegan) 8 April 2018
Duckett, however, later clarified that his intention was not to offend RCB fans. In another tweet, he wrote:
A joke is a good thing by the way __ https://t.co/PJZc4tkdeO
— Ben Duckett (@BenDuckett1) 8 April 2018
Woken up to these and many more horrible messages. Yesterday I referred to RCB as a ‘joke’ meaning they have such a good side with the likes of de kock, de villiers, kohli, McCullum and lots of other world class players. These types of messages are not acceptable. pic.twitter.com/hIqwwCbDtM
— Ben Duckett (@BenDuckett1) 9 April 2018
Duckett has so far played 4 Test matches for England after making his debut in the oldest format of the game in 2016. Besides that, he made his debut in ODI for England in 2016.
