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Former Indian opener Gautam Gambhir has broken his silence on the verbal spat with Virat Kohli during the 2023 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). The incident took place in the match between Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow. Gambhir and Kohli were involved in a verbal spat after the RCB batter and LSG bowler had a heated exchange during and after the match. After more than seven months, Gambhir indicated that it was his duty as a mentor to interfere because the heated exchanges continued even after the game was over.
“As a mentor, no one can come and walk over my players and I’ve got a very different belief. Till the time game was on, I had no right to interfere but once the game was over, if someone still gets into a heated argument with my players, I’ve got all the rights to defend them,” Gambhir said on the ANI podcast.
Both Gambhir and Kohli were fined 100 per cent of their match fee. They admitted to a Level 2 offence under Article 2.21 of the IPL Code of Conduct, which relates to acts including unruly public behaviour.
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After the incident, Naveen was greeted with chants of 'Kohli-Kohli' wherever he played during IPL 2023. It continued in ICC Men's ODI World Cup 2023 as well. However, the animosity came to an end when both the players made up on the field and Kohli asked the crowd at his home ground Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi not to mock the Afghan pacer.
In the podcast, Gambhir also mentioned that his knock of 97 in the World Cup 2011 against Sri Lanka at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai was not underrated. He believes that it was not overshadowed and Public Relations agencies are behind glorifying one player and it leads to another getting the underrated tag.
Recently, Gambhir was involved in a heated exchange with his former teammate S Sreesanth in the Legends League Cricket (LLC) 2023. Sreesanth accused Gambhir of calling him a “fixer” and using abusive language. However, the pacer faced the brunt of it as the League Commissioner issued him a legal notice for breach of contract. It also mentioned that the umpires reported that Gambhir did not use those expletives.
Earlier, Gambhir left LSG as their mentor to rejoin his former franchise Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the same capacity.
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