Afghanistan pacer Naveen-ul-Haq’s memory of his fiery fight with Virat Kohli in IPL 2023 is still fresh in his mind. The Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) pacer revisits his fiery exchange with RCB’s Kohli and Siraj. Ahead of IPL 2024, the Afghan pacer dives into details of his exchange with King Kohli,
Naveen-ul-Haq’s fiery fight with Kohli still fresh in his mind
“We went to play our away match in Bengaluru. That’s where it all started. We won that game – it was very close – so one of our players [Avesh Khan] threw the helmet in excitement after scoring the winning runs. Virat Kohli probably didn’t like it. Next, their team came to Lucknow. I think I went out to bat at No. 9 or 10 and we had pretty much lost the game by then,” Naveen said, as per Hindustan Times.
“So, I didn’t expect that I would be sledged. But when it happened, like I said, when someone starts, I can’t hold back. After the game, things continued during the handshake too. The sledging came from two guys – Kohli and Mohammed Siraj,” he added.
LSG pacer justifies Gambhir’s gesture
Gautam Gambhir, who was with LSG in IPL 2023, had launched wild celebrations following his side’s win. He had made a ‘hush’ gesture, following which he shook hands with the rest of RCB.
“Gautam Gambhir got carried away [with the shush gesture] because in the previous game, when we needed 1 off 1, one of their bowlers wanted to run the non-striker out while running into bowl. It was the last wicket. It got heated because the bowler missed taking the bails off. Spirit-wise it wasn’t looking good because it had proven to be such a good game by then. It would have been a shame had it ended in a run out. Because of that, he wanted to silence the crowd. He is a passionate guy, and so is Virat,” Naveen concluded.
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