Kagiso Rabada clears the air about his tweet which was mistaken as match-fixing hint

Kagiso Rabada has cleared the air after tweets from him and Lungi Ngidi suggested of match-fixing in on-going South Africa vs India series. After winning the first two Tests, the performance of the hosts went completely south, losing their first-ever bilateral series against India at home. They are currently 4-1 down in the series. Amidst South Africa’s poor batting throughout the series, Rabada and Ngidi posted two tweets but deleted them immediately. This caused suspicion among Twitterati, who concluded that the series was fixed.

Out of cricketing context?

“Money is the root of all evil….” was the tweet from both the bowlers at the same time on Wednesday, February 14. However, it was immediately deleted. But before the incident could be blown out of proportion, Rabada publicly cleared the air with his next tweet which said, “Myself and @Ngidilungi tweets had nothing to do with cricket. :)” The tweet was instantly retweeted by Lungi.

Myself and @NgidiLungi tweets had nothing to do with cricket. 🙂

— kagiso rabada (@KagisoRabada25) February 14, 2018

South Africa’s dismal performance in ODIs

South Africa batted poorly throughout, except in the fourth ODI. In the first ODI, they could manage only 269 runs after Faf du Plessis’ century. In the next game, they couldn’t muster beyond 118 runs. In the third ODI, nothing changed as they were all out for 179 while chasing 304. In the fifth ODI, they were all out for 201. Their consistent poor performance gave Twitterati a reason to look at both the pacers’ tweets as a hint of something illegitimate.

Rabada fined

Earlier after the fifth ODI, Rabada was fined 15 per cent of his match fee for making “aggressive gestures” at Shikhar Dhawan. The incident happened when Rabada waved at Dhawan after dismissing him and later admitted to his offence. He was charged by the on-field umpires Ian Gould and Shaun George, third umpire Aleem Dar and fourth umpire Bongani Jele. The sixth and final ODI will be played tomorrow (February 16) after which will follow a three-match T20I series.