The Afghanistan cricketer opened the lid on what instigated his ugly post-game exchange with the experienced RCB player.
Naveen Ul Haq finally opened the lid on what led to his infamous on-field duel with Virat Kohli at the close of a league stage encounter of the recently concluded IPL 2023. The match played at the start of May in Lucknow between hosts Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) witnessed the most controversial altercation in recent times.
While it was the uglier Gautam Gambhir-Virat Kohli clash that grabbed the limelight, the bone of contention for the LSG mentor was Kohli’s constant sledging and abuse hurled at his team’s pacer from Afghanistan in the first place. Gambhir felt miffed at Kohli for throwing cuss words at Naveen at the fag end of LSG’s ultimately unsuccessful run-chase.
But there was no revelation at the time on what exactly triggered the altercation seen when Naveen and Kohli shook hands with each other. The traditional post-game act became a cause for the ugly clash with the two cricketers giving each other a hard time, requiring the rest of the players to intervene to ensure they don’t cross the line.
As for Naveen, however, the line had indeed been crossed and therefore the altercation played itself out. In a shocking revelation, the cricketer has accused Kohli of manhandling him and grabbing his hand “forcefully” at the the hand-shake ritual, which got him furious.
Speaking to BBC Pashto, the Afghan right-arm seamer revealed Kohli not only abuse him when he came out to bat at the twilight of LSG’s run-chase but also then “grabbed” his hands “forcefully”. The cricketer said he wasn’t the one who instigated the exchange, it was Kohli all along.
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“He (Kohli) shouldn’t have said all those things during the match and after it. I didn’t start the fight. After the match, when we were shaking hands, Virat Kohli started the fight,” Naveen said.
“I just want to say one thing I generally don’t sledge anyone, and even if I do it I would say it to the batters only when I am bowling because I am a bowler. In that match, I didn’t utter a single word. I didn’t sledge anyone.”
“Players who were there, they know how I dealt with the situation. I never lost my temper, when I was batting or after the match. What I did after the match can be seen by everyone. I was just shaking hands and then he (Kohli) grabbed my hand forcefully and I am also a human being and I reacted,” he added.
