Don't politicise my tweets, says Ashwin after cryptic comments cause stir

Ace off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on Friday asked a media house not to "politicise" his tweets.

Earlier on Friday, Ashwin put out a series of cryptic tweets, which some Twitter users felt were referring to seemingly uniform tweets by Indian celebrities against comments by global figures on the farmers' protests.

On Friday, Ashwin tweeted about marketing strategies and alluded to homogeneity of thought, noting "Products are sold using various marketing strategies and that’s an accepted practice! We now live in an era where ideas are also being sold to us and it’s a classic example of 'outbound marketing', however I would like to add that buying ideas being sold to us is like telling us... “you can’t think on your own” and here we will teach you how to think and also help you think the way we want you to think. After having played the game at this level for a decade, I can safely say that 'As long as we are going to buy it, they will shove it down our throat'."

Emphasising the importance of individual thinking, Ashwin wrote, "We can always have and stand by our opinions even if it’s against the majority as long as we know that it is our own and not the one thats been sold to us! 'The choice is always ours'."

A media house referred to Ashwin's tweets and asked whether it was a response to the tweets by Indian celebrities on the farmers' protests. Indian cricket team captain Virat Kohli was among those who tweeted in support of calls against perceived foreign interference in the protests.

Responding to the media house, Ashwin tweeted, "... don’t want any of you all to try and give meaning to or politicise my tweets. My profession is cricket and that’s what I have spoken about, please don’t add flavour to skew minds."