Afghanistan pacer Naveen Ul Haq revisited the ugly episode during a match in IPL 2023 between his team Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). During LSG’s game in Bengaluru against RCB, tempers ran high as things between Kohli and Naveen got extremely heated, forcing Gambhir to intervene.
The spat started between Virat Kohli and Naveen Ul Haq and evolved into Kohli and Gautam Gambhir, then LSG mentor, almost coming to blows. They had to be pacified and separated by their respective team members.
Naveen, who has spoken about the incident earlier, shared more insights into the series of events that went down and triggered the spat.
"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 in a podcast with Zalmi TV.
"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.
After the win, Gautam Gambhir came to the ground and shushed the Bengaluru crowd. He then shook the hands of the opposition players, including Kohli. Gambhir and Kohli came face-to-face once again, needing to be separated by teammates clearly did not make for the most comfortable and pleasant viewing.
"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 runout. Because of that, he wanted to silence the crowd. He is a passionate guy, and so is Virat," Naveed added.
However, Naveen and Kohli buried the hatchet a few months after, during the ICC World Cup 2023. Naveen had returned to the Afghanistan team after a rehab for a knee injury. After Rohit Sharma’s wicket fell for 131 in a chase of 273 runs, Kohli walked into bat, shook hands, and hugged Naveen to end the feud during a commercial break.
"When I was going back to my position at long off, Virat bhai said 'Let's finish this and forget what's happened'. Even after the game, he said that the crowd won't bother you anymore," added Naveen.
(Zalmi TV/Hindustan Times inputs)
