File image of Naveen-Ul-Haq and Virat Kohli© X (Twitter)
Afghanistan pacer Naveen-ul-Haq recently made a comment which brought back the memories of his infamous argument with star India batter Virat Kohli. The on-field spat between Virat Kohli and Naveen-ul-Haq became one of the biggest talking points of IPL 2023. Kohli, who was playing for Royal Challengers Bengaluru, got indulged into a heated argument with Lucknow Super Giants pacer Naveen during their teams’ match in Lucknow in May 2023. This spat took an ugly turn when Gautam Gambhir, who was LSG’s mentor back then, also got involved and was at loggerheads with Kohli.
After this incident, Naveen met Kohli in Delhi during Afghanistan’s ODI World Cup match against India in October 2023 and the duo surprised the fans by hugging out their differences. However, the journey between the spat and the reunion was not a sweet one as the young Afghan pacer never missed an opportunity to take a dig at Kohli.
One such example is when Naveen posted an image of mangoes on his Instagram story while watching the IPL match between RCB and Mumbai Indians on a TV screen. It is worth noting that the visual the TV screen showed was right after Kohli (1) was dismissed.
In a recent interaction with ESPNCricinfo, Naveen was asked a witty question, “Never eat a mango again or never take a five-for?”
Naveen left everyone amused with his response, “Never eat a mango again.”
Apart from this, Naveen asked to choose either to bowl or bat with Kohli. “I have bowled to him, so I will choose to bat with him.”
Naveen was released from LSG’s squad ahead of the mega auctions for the upcoming season. LSG retained Nicholas Pooran, Mayank Yadav and Ravi Bishnoi alongside uncapped stars Mohsin Khan and Ayush Badoni.
It will be interesting to see whether RCB will target Naveen in the upcoming mega auctions.
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