Both have their devotees and critics, and their feud is likely to get you more hits and likes, soar TRP ratings.
The issue moves from ground to rage on social media. Their stature makes this controversy cringe worthy.
By: Editorial
May 4, 2023 06:45 IST
Three days have passed since the flare-up featuring Virat Kohli, Gautam Gambhir and Naveen-ul-Haq during an IPL game between Lucknow Super Giants and Royal Challengers Bangalore. But the embers refuse to die. With social media platforms fueling the fire, the routine on-field altercation has blown into an ugly event polarising the IPL-watching world. The attention it has garnered is perhaps understandable — the bust-up starred one of India’s finest batsmen and one of its best cross-format openers, a Lok Sabha MP. Both have their devotees and critics, and their feud is likely to get you more hits and likes, soar TRP ratings.
But the overkill has reached an intolerable scale. Arguments and verbal exchanges happen on the field. In the heat of the moment, players banter, sledge, or even abuse. But those are soon buried as the match gets over. There are countless such stories in the sporting world, more so in cricket, which holds sportsmanship as its defining virtue. It is perhaps a sign of the changing times that the after-burns of such incidents continue for days. The incident need not have gone beyond a routine spat between Kohli and Naveen-ul-Haq, a journeyman cricketer. Then Gambhir intervened, lost Kohli his calm, and the world jumped on, making the incident look like an event of national consequence.
What is more appalling is the shadow war that ensued on the media platform after the night of the incident. In a video, Kohli could be heard saying: “That’s a sweet win boys! Sweet win, Let’s Go! If you can give it, you gotta take it, otherwise don’t give it.” He then wrote on Insta: “Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” More than the premise of this farce, it’s the stature of the protagonists that makes this episode worthy of cringe.
© The Indian Express (P) Ltd