Cricket World Cup: After Virat Kohli, Naveen hug it out, Gautam Gambhir asks fans to be ‘better ambassadors’

 

As Virat Kohli and Naveen ul Haq shared a warm embrace and exchanged pleasantries in the middle of India’s win over Afghanistan at the ongoing Cricket World Cup on Wednesday, they earned praise from former India cricketer Gautam Gambhir as well.

Kohli and Naveen were involved in a spat during the Indian Premier League (IPL) five months ago, which led to a football-style clash between Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). Even Gambhir, who was the mentor of LSG, got involved in the argument at one point with Kohli. The bickering gave rise to many viral videos and memes.

So when India was to take on Afghanistan on Tuesday, there was a lot of hype about what would happen if Naveen bowled to Kohli in the game or if they met in the middle. But the duo buried the hatchet, embracing and joking with each other during India’s innings.

At one point, Kohli also looked at the crowd at Feroz Shah Kotla and asked the New Delhi fans to cut out the jeering of Naveen.

“That was a great gesture. The good thing was we saw Virat and Naveen in between the overs, we can see that the fight has ended. I hope at every venue that Afghanistan plays in at the World Cup, the crowd sees this gesture from Virat,” Gambhir told presenter Jatin Sapru on his YouTube channel.

He went on to add: “Everyone has the right to fight for their honor and their team. But these fights should stay in the middle, not spill over outside. It doesn’t matter which country you belong to or how good a player you are. So I hope that the crowd behaves in a more sensible manner in the future. When foreign players come to play in India, we should be better brand ambassadors for our country.

These players should return with better memories. Whatever country they are from, Pakistan or Afghanistan. It’s not appropriate to troll them viciously for something that happened in the middle. Let’s be better ambassadors.

“The way the crowd behaved after that fight… the fans could have behaved more sensibly. No one else besides players from the two teams knows what happened between the two sets of players,” he added.

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