'I don’t sledge someone upfront, It’s not my...' - Naveen-ul-Haq reignites his tiff with Virat Kohli once again
Naveen-Ul-Haq indirectly insisted it was Virat Kohli who instigated the dramatic on-field altercation that the two cricketers were part of during the league stage encounter of the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) season.
The Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) seamer put the blame for the entire controversial feud on the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) batter by saying he has never sledged anyone "upfront" and was only responding to the words thrown at him the Indian batting great.
In a conversation with fellow seamer Avesh Khan, captured in a clip posted on Twitter by the Lucknow franchise on their official handle, Naveen and his teammate gave their answers to fan-based queries. The two cricketers initially laughed when a question on Naveen's sledging response emerged as the two were anticipating a query on the whole Virat Kohli fiasco.
Responding to this query, the right-arm pacer said it's not "my habit" to go after opposition players on the field as he believes in letting his cricket do the talking, indirectly villainizing Kohli for the verbal spat and ugly exchange that got played out in front of the Lucknow fans.
Naveen-Ul-Haq blames Virat Kohli for instigating infamous feud
The incident took place at the fag end of the LSG-RCB encounter at the Ekana Stadium. As LSG stood on the verge of a defeat with Naveen walking in at No.10 in the run-chase, Virat Kohli was seen engaging in a verbal war with Naveen. Later, the RCB batter also had a go at Naveen's partner and senior Indian wristspinner Amit Mishra. On both occassions, it took the umpire's intervention to restore calm to the proceedings.
But the Kohli-Naveen clash hadn't settled there. The two cricketers gave each other a mouthful even when the two teams shook hands following the result, which went in RCB's favour in a low-scoring game on a dry turner.
"I don’t sledge someone upfront, It’s not my habit," Naveen said in response to the query that Avesh read out.
The pacer then recalled a funny episode from a first-class game he was part of in Afghanistan to further explain his usual stance on sledging.
"I was on the non-striker’s end and the batter on strike got sledged," he said. "The fielder on the silly point was newly married. He said, ‘It’s the last wicket, let's finish this quickly, I need to go home and finish some work, I just got married yesterday. This was a funny incident that happened."