It is fair to say that the suspension of Kagiso Rabada has divided opinion among the vast cricket loving public. In the immediate aftermath, arguments raged across social media with fans sharing wildly different opinions on the incident. With what seemed like countless disagreements vigourously pursued from Cape Town to Coolangatta and everywhere in between, we thought we had seen all the possible interpretations of the collision of Rabada and Steve Smith. That is until Vernon Philander decided to share his own surprising apportioning of blame on Twitter.
Yep, you’ve read that right.
That incident that you and friends have all seen adnauseam since the second it happened and have formed different opinions, Philander has one different to all of you! A little like the man arguing that a parked car was to blame for an accident because it wouldn’t have happened had it not been there, the South African champ has argued the mother of all contrary positions.
It’s not just us at home that he has disagreed with, he’s gone rogue on the accepted defence that the South African team had decided upon too. Since the post-match press conference, the Proteas have mounted an argument that lies somewhere between – ‘it wasn’t really contact‘, and ‘did you see what David Warner did?’ Even the man himself would have been surprised at Philander’s position given he said this at the post-match press conference, “I’ve let myself and the team down,” Rabada said on Monday. “But I have to move forward and I have to see, if I do get banned, then I have to see it as a big learning curve and not repeat the same mistake, because I’ve repeated the same mistake in the eyes of the umpires.”
Not surprisingly, given the lunacy of the position, the Proteas quick man sent a follow-up tweet in response to the torrent of feedback he had received to the first.
Good morning all my tweeps. Waking up this morning to alot of twitter craziness as my acc got hacked and someone posted a nice little article on my behalf. Sorry for all the drama or entertainment caused by the looks of it. Have a great day all.
— Vernon Philander (@VDP_24) March 15, 2018
After setting social media alight with one of the more outlandish offerings this side of Donald Trump, he has plumped for the most favoured of options to clean the mess up. Like every athlete who has tested positive for drugs was the victim of a conspiracy, every celebrity’s rogue tweets are the result of a hack.
All we know is that every now and then sportspeople tweet the darndest things.