Walking the talk: Ugliest on-field incidents in IPL history
The game of cricket is renowned as the gentleman’s game. But sometimes, the pressure and the competitive spirit gets the worst out of the players and they end up crossing the line of what’s acceptable. In the course of the past 12 editions of the IPL, there have been many instances of cricketers indulging in verbal battles with their opponents. Often, the cash-rich league had grabbed headlines for all the wrong reasons, some of them being sledging and on-field fights.
Let’s take a look at some of the worst fights and sledging incidents in the history of the world’s most lucrative T20 tournament.
David Warner – Zaheer Khan (IPL 2014)
In a 2014 IPL match between Mumbai Indians and Sunrisers Hyderabad, David Warner and Zaheer Khan locked horns with each other. While batting, Warner rolled the ball over to the point fielder to take a single. However, on the way, Warner and Zaheer exchanged a few heated words. After this, the Aussie batsman made a shushing gesture telling the Mumbai bowler to be quiet. Seeing this, Zak glared back at Warner in anger before walking back to his run-up. However, things cooled down as the two cricketers smiled at each other later in the match and eradicated the heated sentiments.
Kieron Pollard – Mitchell Starc (IPL 2014)
The on-field conflict between Royal Challengers Bangalore pacer Mitchell Starc and Mumbai Indians all-rounder Kieron Pollard can be considered as one of the most heated face-offs in history. In the 2014 edition, Pollard was batting when Starc bowled a bouncer and sent some verbal abuses towards the batsman. Pollard didn’t react and through his hand gesture, told Starc to continue bowling.
Things got heated after some time when the pacer was about to deliver and Pollard moved away from the batting crease. Being distraught, the speedster decided to continue bowling and bowled the ball towards the West Indies Stalwart. The Trinidadian then furiously threw his bat in Starc’s direction. Fortunately, the bat slipped out of Pollard’s hand and got thumped on the ground. Seeing this heated argument, the umpires, Rohit Sharma and Chris Gayle ran in the middle to pacify both the cricketers.
Virat Kohli – Gautam Gambhir (IPL 2013)
In a match between KKR and RCB, Gautam Gambhir and Virat Kohli were at each other’s throat after the former took a jibe at the RCB skipper for losing his wicket. At the beginning of the 10th over, Kohli was dismissed by Lakshmipathy Balaji and Gambhir hurled some offensive words at the batsman when he was walking back to the pavilion. Within no delay, Kohli also replied with some more words and this resulted in an on-field feud between the two Indian batsmen. The matter got so much worse that KKR all-rounder Rajat Bhatia and umpire Anil Chaudhary had to step in to stop the two captains.
Harbhajan Singh – S Sreesanth (IPL 2008)
The fight between Mumbai Indians bowler Harbhajan Singh and Kings XI Punjab’s S Sreesanth in the inaugural IPL edition can be considered as the ugliest fight in the history of the cash-rich league. It all started with Sreesanth taking a dig at Harbhajan after Punjab clinched the match by 66 runs. Being agitated by the verbal abuse, Harbhajan responded to Sreesanth with a tight slap on his face. The slap left the pacer in tears as he broke down on the ground. This heated altercation resulted in Harbhajan getting suspended from the rest of the tournament while Sreesanth was left with a warning.
