The distasteful notebook send-off by Digvesh Rathi to Priyansh Arya came back to haunt him after Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) crashed to an eight-wicket defeat against Punjab Kings (PBKS) at Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow on Tuesday. PBKS climbed to the second spot in the points table with their second successive win in Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025.
Asked to bat first, LSG scored 171/7 in their 20 overs riding on the knocks of Nicholas Pooran (44) and Ayush Badoni (41), with PBKS pace spearhead Arshdeep Singh taking 3 wickets. PBKS run chase got off to a bad start as Priyansh Arya fell to Digvesh Rathi in the third over.
LSG’s Rathi celebrated Arya’s dismissal by making a distasteful notebook send-off, that didn’t go down well and looked ugly and seriously out of place.
PBKS went onto register a crushing eight-wicket victory thanks to Prabhsimran Singh’s 34-ball 69 and unbeaten knocks of captain Shreyas Iyer (52) and Nehal Wadhera (43).
After the victory, PBKS posted on their official X handle the moment of Rathi giving the send-off and added another picture that showed a note scribbled on a notebook: “Punjab Kings won by 8 wickets”.
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The caption of the post said: “Writing off another win!”
Rathi’s notebook send-off brought back memories of West Indies pacer Kesrick Williams who had gained notoriety for his peculiar celebrations.
When he was a regular for the Windies team, Williams would allegedly put out an imaginary notebook, write the name of the batter he removed, and cross it off the list.
It was all going well for Williams till he dismissed India batting superstar Virat Kohli during a limited-overs series in the Caribbean in 2017 and celebrated similarly.
When the West Indies team toured India in 2019, Kohli replied with a notebook celebration after smashing 32 runs off the 12 deliveries he faced against Williams during a Twenty20 International.
“[Kesrick] Williams had given me the notebook when he dismissed me in Jamaica [in 2017], so I remembered it from there. We gave each other a high-five later. Play hard but respect the opponent,” Virat Kohli had said at that time.
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