'How about a bravery award?': Ashwin brutally takes down Billings, Anderson as England duo pokes fun at Deepti's run out

India Women managed to eke out a 16-run victory against England Women in the third ODI, at Lord's in London on Friday. The win helped them complete a 3-0 whitewash in Jhulan Goswami's last match before international retirement, after having sealed their second-ever ODI series win in England. Chasing a target of 170 runs, England were down to their last wicket and needed over 50 overs. But it looked like Charlie Dean, batting at no.9, had other plans and could lead them to a shocking win. It all came to an end when Deepti Sharma ended her innings with a 'Mankad' run out. The incident occurred in the third delivery of the 44th over when Dean was backing out and Deepti hit the stumps for a run out. The decision was sent to the third umpire and the dismissal was confirmed.

The dismissal received plenty of criticism from Sam Billings and he was also joined by James Anderson. But Ravichandran Ashwin rushed to Deepti's defence and brutally took down the England duo with a tweet.

Billings stated, "There’s surely not a person who has played the game that thinks this is acceptable? Just not cricket…"

"Well within the laws but not in the spirit. Just my opinion… the law should be changed back to a warning system or penalty runs for excessive backing up for eg".

He continued, "Not even looking at the other end in delivery stride…"

Joining the bandwagon, pacer Anderson stated, "Spot on. No intention of bowling the ball".

Reacting to Anderson, Billings quipped, "Imagine how many more wickets you could get James".

Lashing out at Billings and Anderson, Ashwin questioned their notion of 'social stigma' and felt that the Indian Women spinner should be given 'a bravery award'. He wrote, "In fact that’s a great idea. How about awarding that wicket to the bowler for “ presence of mind” under immense pressure and of course knowing the social stigma that he/she would have to deal with post doing it. How about a bravery award to go with it too @ICC ?"

Deepti also scalped the wicket of Freya Kemp, who could only muster five runs off 10 balls. Meanwhile, she was also in fine form with the bat. Despite a half-century by Smriti Mandhana, the visitors had a top order collapse but Deepti came to the rescue with an unbeaten knock of 68 runs off 106 balls, including seven fours.