Follow UsChennai Super Kings (CSK) star Ravichandran Ashwin has been in the news recently, albeit not due to his performances. Ashwin runs a YouTube channel with over 1.5 million subscribers but he was forced to cancel the review and preview of all CSK games in his channel after fans enraged due to a panelist, in one of the shows, claiming that CSK erred by picking Noor Ahmad despite already having Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.
The seemingly ‘biased’ comment got a lot of backlash, particularly with Ashwin underperforming with the ball, and the Indian star was forced to put a statement clarifying that his channel won’t be talking about CSK matches going forward due to the conflict of interest.
On April (Wednesday), the 38-year-old appeared on his channel for the first time since the controversy, and he spoke about how he is okay dealing with constructive criticism, not venomous abuse.
“If certain people are finding faults in you, it can come from a position of meaning well. We can take that because it’s constructive criticism. But certain people will just spew venom. And you can easily spot the ones who are spewing venom,” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.
“It is always about being better than what you were today - that’s my life mantra. If someone is expressing genuine concern, it’s coming from a position of love. I’m absolutely fine with criticism coming from a point of love and concern.”
Later in the same show, talking about how players are buoyed by the backing of the fans, Ashwin lauded the RCB fandom for always, at all costs, backing their players to the hilt.
“I had done a ‘Kutty Story’ earlier, and there, Dinesh Karthik spoke about how RCB fans always back their players to the hilt. They’ll always make sure to defend them at all costs. I agree that fans have the right to be critical, but the real fans are the ones that provide constructive criticism and back their players at all costs, not the ones who troll.