‘Gambhir jealous, can’t digest Virat Kohli’s…’: Pakistan cricketer’s explosive claim on IPL spat

The heated altercation between Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir in the IPL 2023 has been going on for about two months now. One of the most infamous spats in history occurred when Kohli and Gambhir were almost about to collide after Royal Challengers Bangalore defeated Lucknow Super Giants. 

Gambhir and Kohli, who have clashed before on the pitch (the first time was in the 2013 IPL), let their emotions get the best of them when the tiff didn’t even involve the former India opener. 

A furious argument occurred between Naveen-ul-Haq and Kohli, but Gambhir’s presence made it quite apparent that he would not tolerate anyone acting inappropriately toward one of his players.

“By what I saw, it was really sad. I can understand what happened on the field between that Afghanistan player (Naveen) and Virat Kohli. These things happen, but what you can’t understand is why would Gambhir target a player of his own country, who is right now the world’s biggest player. The gestures he showed against Kohli were not right. Our perception as viewers have changed as our feelings have gotten hurt. It seemed as if Gambhir tried to create something out jealousy. IPL has a brand and if any Indian superstar is being said something by someone – in this case Naveen – it means that there is hatred spread inside the dressing room. Only then does a player get the confidence to go and misbehave,” Shehzad said on The Nadir Ali podcast.

Then, the dismissed Pakistan opener’s thoughts went back to when Kohli and Gambhir initially engaged in their infamous altercation, which occurred ten years ago. The alleged problems between Kohli and Gambhir originally surfaced in this situation. 

Since then, social media has been eager to jump the gun whenever Gambhir has said anything remotely disparaging about Kohli or critiqued his performance.