'Maza aayega' - Aakash Chopra responds to Jhulan Goswami's challenge for a face-off in the nets

Fast bowler Jhulan Goswami has been one of the spearheads in the rise of Indian Women Cricket in the past 20 years. If Mithali Raj has inspired a whole host of young Indian girls to take up batting, Goswami gave wings of confidence to the girls to try their hand at fast bowling. Goswami, who stands at 5’11’ made her International debut for the Women in Blue against England way back in 2002 and has since then spearheaded the fast bowling unit.

The big fast bowler is the leading wicket-taker in Women One-day International cricket. In 182 WODIs, Goswami has claimed 225 wickets at an average of 21.48 which includes two five-wicket hauls. She is also the first bowler in the history of Women’s ODI cricket to take 200 wickets, a feat she achieved against South Africa back in February 2018.

Goswami, who has been conferred with the prestigious Arjuna Award [2010] and Padma Shri [2012] took to Twitter today to post a video of her bowling in the nets. She has bamboozled a lot of women batters in her 18-year-old career but it seems like Goswami wants to test her male counterparts with her pace and accuracy.

The fast bowler challenged former Indian opener-turned commentators Aakash Chopra and Deep Das Gupta and renowned journalist Vikrant Gupta for a face-off in the nets. She wrote, “Anyone wants to pad-up… @cricketaakash @DeepDasgupta7 and @vikrantgupta73 paji?,” wrote Jhulan Goswami.

Aakash Chopra is quite an active figure on social media

Chopra first shrugged off the offer before saying that it will be fun to face her in the nets. “Wow I mean…thanks but no thanks.  On a serious note—let’s make this happen someday. Maza aayega. What say?” Akash Chopra replied.

Meanwhile, Aakash Chopra was recently in the news for his article where he argued that KL Rahul should be opening the batting for India in One-day Internationals instead of playing the role of a middle-order batsman and wicket-keeper because he feels that the workload will ultimately break him and he is too crucial an asset for India to lose.

“I’m not suggesting that making Rahul keep will injure him, but it would increase the chances of that happening. His body might not be used to keeping wicket for three and a half hours and then opening the half of the inning an hour later,” penned down Aakash Chopra in his ESPNCricinfo column.

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