Shikhar Dhawan Brutally Cooks Ambati Rayudu On Live TV

The former Indian opening batter, Shikhar Dhawan, teased his teammate, Ambati Rayudu, on live TV during the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 contest between the Royal Challengers Bengaluru and the Punjab Kings at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Stadium in Mullanpur, Chandigarh.

Both Dhawan and Rayudu were in the commentary panel during the encounter alongside Aakash Chopra, who took the backseat in the entire conversation.

Shikhar Dhawan takes a jibe at Ambati Rayudu

As the Rajat Patidar-led Bengaluru side chased down 158 runs with ease to register a seven-wicket victory over Punjab, Dhawan recalled an anecdote from the Under-19 playing days.

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Dhawan insulted Rayudu by mentioning that the latter was their captain during the Under-19 days. He also cracked that the Hyderabad-born got banned there as well for some reason.

“Ambati Rayudu ka bahut bada naam tha U19 mai. Humare captain the U19 World cup me aur waha pe bhi ban hogye the, humara semi-final margya tha. (Rayudu was a huge name in the U19 days. He was our (India’s) captain in the U19 World Cup and later got banned ahead of the semifinal.” Dhawan expressed on the live commentary.

On many past occasions, Rayudu made headlines for his aggressive nature on the field. He carries a history of fighting incidents with the match officials and even their own players.

Ambati Rayudu’s three bans in his career

Ambati Rayudu missed the semifinal after receiving a one-match ban for breaching the ICC Code of Conduct. The two on-field umpires, Brian Jerling and Billy Doctrove, under the provision C2 of the ICC Code of Conduct at Level 2 for conduct that brought the game into disrepute, reported the batter.

The charge was around the excessive time-wasting in the opening overs of the second innings during their final group-stage clash against Sri Lanka. India bowled just eight overs in the first 50 minutes of the first innings in a surprising manner.

It was just the start of the list. Ambati Rayudu faced more bans in his career. During the 2018 season of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, the batter received a two-match suspension from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for breaching the code of conduct.

In the very next year, he faced a suspension from bowling in international cricket by the International Cricket Council (ICC). He also failed to undergo testing for a suspected action during an ODI game against Australia in 2019.

India lost the U-19 World Cup semifinal against Pakistan

In the absence of Ambati Rayudu, the former wicket-keeper batter, Dinesh Karthik, led the side in the semifinal as the blue brigade lost to Pakistan by five wickets to end their campaign.

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Batting first, they post 169 runs, with Robin Uthappa ending as the top-scorer with 33 runs. The Green Brigade, in reply, chased down the total in 44.5 overs. The opponents were struggling at 83/5 in one stage before Fawad Alam and Tariq Mahmood put up an 88-run partnership for the sixth wicket to take them home.

Pakistan went on to win the campaign by beating the West Indies in the final. In Dhaka, the Khalid Latif-led side batted first to post 230/9 in their 50 overs, thanks to Asif Iqbal’s 54-run knock.

The Dinesh Ramdin-led side fell short of the target by 25 runs as most of their batters failed to convert their starts into a big score and kept on losing wickets at the wrong moments of the game.