Afghanistan pacer Naveen Ul Haq was not a happy person after having been a target of Virat Kohli’s ire during the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) IPL 2023 match in Lucknow on May 1.
The pacer, who is the son of a doctor from war-torn Kabul, and who moved to Pakistan as a refugee, saw himself getting some action by Mohammed Siraj first as LSG meandered to an 18-run loss while chasing 126 to win in Ekana Stadium in Lucknow.
Then Virat Kohli entered the fray and hurled some choicest words to Naveen, who retaliated in kind. Kohli, at one point in time, also showed his shoe and dirt from its sole to Naveen while mouthing some words.
After the match, when the two shook hands, Naveen continued to share his thoughts with Kohli, who was in no mood to listen. In the end, when KL Rahul was conversing with Kohli, he invited Naveen to chat with the RCB legend, but the Afghan pacer rebuked the offer.
“I have come here to play in the IPL, not to take abuse from anyone,” The Indian Express reported that Naveen told one of his LSG teammates.
The 23-year-old on Tuesday morning shared a cryptic Instagram post, which is being deciphered as a dig at Virat Kohli. “You get what you deserve. That’s how it should be and that’s how it goes,” Naveen wrote on his Instagram story.
This is not the first time, Naveen got into an altercation with a legend on the field. He had n-field verbal sparring with Pakistan’s Mohammad Amir and later with Shahid Afridi in 2020 during the Lanka Premier League tournament.
“If someone is saying something to me I won’t back off. I have had it since childhood. It comes naturally to me. I wouldn’t be speaking truthfully if I said from tomorrow I would change it. If I said that I would back off when someone says something to me, I can’t say I wouldn’t do it. It is in my body. It is in my DNA,” Naveen had once told the Cricketer magazine.
Back then, he was playing for Kandy Tuskers in the Sri Lankan Premier League and had hurled cuss words at Mohammad Amir during the face-off.
During the post-match handshakes, tempers flared between Shahid Afridi and Naveen-ul-Haq, with both having a go at each other.
Afridi had tweeted Naveen to “play the game and don’t indulge in abusive talk.” To which Naveen had replied he can’t stay calm if “someone says you all are under our feet and will stay there,” citing it as a disrespect to the people of Afghanistan.
Amir, who had served a punishment for match-fixing, would add, “He was constantly abusing me, calling me a traitor and saying I should have gone to jail for 5 years”.
In Naveen’s telling, the incident went thus: “Amir came out to bat and they were losing the match. My first delivery he swung so hard but missed the ball. I smiled and asked him how big a six he wanted to hit – I made a joke and he took it seriously. I am competitive from the first ball to the last ball but after the match, I don’t have anything for anybody in my heart. He is a good player, a good cricketer.”
In the Cricketer interview, he summed himself up thus: “People say I am not like that off the pitch – I smile, I joke around with my friends. I am not that serious. But once I am on the ground I am quite serious, whether I am playing franchise cricket or representing my country … I won’t back off if someone says something to me.”
(Indian Express inputs)
