At the Ekana Sports City Stadium on Monday, May 1, the 43rd game of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 featured an exciting match between Lucknow Super Giants and Royal Challengers Bangalore. The furious argument between Virat Kohli, the best batter in the world, and many Lucknow players, as well as coach Gautam Gambhir, has received more attention than Bangalore’s victory, though.
The heated argument has been discussed and covered extensively recently. Five days after the incident, Virat Kohli reportedly wrote to numerous BCCI executives to clarify the circumstances.
The reports state that Kohli communicated his dissatisfaction with the fine the BCCI imposed on him. He even asserted that he did not harm Naveen-ul-Haq or Gambhir in any way to warrant such a heavy fine from the board. In addition to being found guilty of a level 2 offense and violating the IPL Code of Conduct, Gambhir and Kohli were each fined 100% of their match earnings from the match for their altercation.
According to reports, the brawl started because of the 34-year-old’s aggressive behavior toward Amit Mishra, Kyle Mayers, and Naveen-ul-Haq. Further, Kohli claimed in the article that he did not tell Bangalore pacer Mohammed Siraj to hit Naveen but merely to bowl bouncers, as Siraj continuously bowled bouncers to the Afghanistan bowler near the finish of the run chase.
Kohli expressed his displeasure with the 23-year-old’s hostility toward him, in addition to the fact that Naveen was fined 50% of his match earnings for his behavior toward the star Indian batter. After the game, Mayers confronted Kohli for assaulting him; when Gautam Gambhir intervened to remove Mayers from Kohli, the two of them got into a fight.
Even after the incident, LSG captain KL Rahul was seen attempting to calm things down with Kohli as they were both watching from the sidelines and requested Naveen-ul-Haq to do the same for the star batter. The LSG pacer, though, fully rejected his skipper and continued.