At the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023, one of the lasting images was that of the fight between Virat Kohli and Naveen ul Haq. Virat Kohli, playing for Royal Challengers Bangalore, and Naveen ul Haq, playing for Lucknow Super Giants, had a verbal altercation with then LSG mentor Gautam Gambhir also getting involved. Virat Kohli and Naveen ul Haq again came face to face at the Cricket World Cup. The subplot of the face-off added intrigue to the India vs Afghanistan Cricket World Cup 2023 clash. However, what transpired was beautiful. Virat Kohli and Naveen Ul Haq hugged each other. The images of the incident went viral immediately.
In a recent podcast, however, Pakistan cricket team star Imam-ul-Haq claimed that when Virat Kohli’s spat with Naveen Ul Haq had happened at the IPL, his teammate Agha Ali Salman messaged the Indian cricket team star on Instagram.
“The fight was very viral. After the fight, Agha Ali Salman messaged Virat Kohli on Instagram, saying ‘Kohli bacche easy ho ja. kya ho gaya hai. (Kohli go easy),” Imam said.
Agha Salman sent an Instagram text to Virat Kohli asking him to calm down, confirms Imam Ul Haq #PSL2024 #IPL2024pic.twitter.com/TW49JtABsa
— Farid Khan (@_FaridKhan) December 1, 2023
Talking about the incident, Naveen ul Haq in an interview to Lucknow Super Giants mentioned how Virat Kohli settled things between them. After their on-field spat, Naveen Ul Haq had often been jeered by Virat Kohli fans.
“He said, ‘let’s finish it?’, I said, ‘Yes, let’s finish it’ so we we laughed about it, we hugged and we moved on. He said, ‘Now after this, you won’t hear my name’ or something he said [and that], ‘You’ll only get support from the crowd’. I said yeah (smiles),” Naveen said in a video shared by his IPL team Lucknow Super Giants.
“I will stand for my teammate. That’s why we are a team.”
Naveen Ul Haq also commented that the support that the Afghanistan cricket team received in India made them fell like they were playing at home.
“We’ve got support from, I think, every game. In just that one game we played against India in Delhi we didn’t get any support (smiles). [Apart from that], we got a home kind of a feeling in every game,” he said.
After Kohli made peace, the Indian cricket fans looked like doing a U-turn and cheered for Naveen Ul Haq. During a Cricket World Cup match against England in New Delhi, the crowd was firmly behind Afghanistan and Naveen received loud cheers from them throughout the game.
In a video that went viral on social media, the crowd could be seen cheering massively as Naveen dismissed England’s Jos Buttler en route to a famous victory against the defending champions.
Afghanistan pulled off one of the greatest Cricket World Cup shocks when they defeated defending champions England by 69 runs.
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