The 43rd game between Lucknow Super Giants and Royal Challengers Bangalore witnessed every snippet of spice, drama and some nasty incidents as well. Three players breached the IPL Code of Conduct and were slapped with massive fans respectively.
Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir were penalized with 100% match fee for breaching the Code of Conduct. On the other hand, Naveen-ul-Haq was fined 50% of his match fee for violating the Code of Conduct.
Tensions flared up to the core when Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir were involved in an ugly spat. The fact that there were plenty of players on the ground to stop the verbal battle, goes to show how things turned from bad to worse.
The verbal spat between Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir is indeed one of the ugliest episodes in the history of the Indian Premier League. The cricket fraternity was literally confused as to what happened between the two.
Cricket is often regarded as the gentleman’s game as cricketers respect the teammates and the opposition players. The real winner of the game is the one who wins the battle by bringing the best out of themselves and not the ones who create ruckus or hullabaloos.
An eyewitness throws light on the Kohli-Gambhir saga
Several fans and experts believed that the verbal spat between Kohli and Gambhir could have been avoided. However, cricket is also a game full of emotions and those two stalwarts didn’t hide their emotions as they were seen venting it out at each other after the game.
Most of us are unaware of the what really had between the two. Meanwhile, an eyewitness, who was in one of the team dug-outs threw some light on the ugliest incident in IPL 2023 while speaking to news agency PTI.
“You saw on TV that Mayers and Virat were walking side by side for a few metres post match. Mayers asked Kohli why was he constantly abusing them and Virat, in turn, questioned why was he (Mayers) ‘staring’ at him? Before that (Amit) Mishra had complained to umpire about Virat constantly abusing Naveen (ul-Haq), who is a No. 10 batter.
“Gautam, sensing that things could turn ugly, pulled Mayers and told him not to have a conversation, when Virat made a comment. The heated exchange that followed seemed a bit juvenile,” he said.
“Gautam responded, ‘Tuney agar mere player ko bola hai, matlab tune meri family ko gaali diya hai. (You abused my player and that’s like abusing my family) and Virat’s reply was, ‘Toh aap apne family ko sambhal ke rakhiye’. (Then you take care of your family).
“Gambhir’s final reply before they were separated was, ‘Toh ab tu mujhe sikhayega…’ (So now I have to learn from you…).”
