New Delhi: England cricket team's bowling superstar James Anderson has muted the names of two famous cricketers, India's wicketkeeper batter Rishabh Pant and Australia's legendary bowler Glen McGrath, on micro-blogging site Twitter as they are often used by trolls to target him.
Why Rishabh Pant you ask?
Pant, who back then was still struggling to cement his place in Indian cricket team's Test squad, had played a reverse-sweep against James Anderson during India vs England Ahmedabad Test. The audacious shot by Pant became the talk of the town as a young Indian batter had played a cricketing shot, preferably played in white-ball cricket, against a legendary bowler regarded as one of the most lethal bowlers in history of Test cricket. Apparently, the bowling legend has also muted the phrase 'worst than Steyn' and 'Clouderson' - a word trolls use to emphasize that Anderson can only trouble batters when bowling under clouds' cover.
“He’s aggressive, he’ll think outside the box. He might play the odd shot that’s out of the ordinary and we just have to accept that he’s a fantastic player, fantastic talent,” England veteran Anderson had said praising Pant during India’s tour of England in 2021.
Recently, Anderson surpassed Australia's Glenn McGrath to become the most successful fast bowler in history of cricket. Anderson, who made his international debut at the age of 19, has so far taken 950 international wickets in 533 innings in his cricketing career -- the only fast bowler in the world to touch this figure. McGrath took 947 wickets in 493 innings in an international career of 14 years. Former Pakistan fast bowler Wasim Akram, who took 916 wickets in 532 innings, is third in the elite list.