Afghanistan speedster Naveen ul Haq is at the centre of the on-field spat that happened between Royal Challengers Bangalore's Virat Kohli and Mentor of Lucknow Super Giants, the team that Naveen is playing for in IPL 2023, Gautam Gambhir.
The match was played at the Ekana Stadium in Lucknow on Monday and eventually it was RCB who came out on top winning the match by 18 runs. However, more than the cricketing action, it was the on-field verbal exchanges that happened between the two sides that made headlines.
LSG's Naveen was one the players involved. A report carried by Indian Express reported that the 23-year-old told one of his teammates: "I have come to play in the IPL, not to take abuses" in the aftermath of the entire incident.
During LSG's batting innings, Naveen had exchanges with Kohli and RCB pacer Mohammes Siraj. During the customary handskakes after the match between members of both the teams, Kohli and Naveen had one more face off which was clearly not a pleasant one.
On Tuesday morning, the pacer shared an Instagram story which is being looked as another indirect dig at the ex-RCB captain.
“You get what you deserve. That’s how it should be and that’s how it goes,” Naveen posted.
While Kohli and Gambhir were fined 100 per cent of their match fees for breaching the IPL code of conduct, Naveen was also handed a fine worth 50 per cent of his match fees. This isn't the first time for the young pacer that he been involved in a mid-pitch controversy. Before this, he had been part of an angry exchange with Pakistan's Mohammad Amir and Shahid Afridi.
Naveen was the pick of the bowlers for LSG, finishing his 4 overs for 3/30 as LSG restricted RCB to 126/9 but that wasn't enough as the home team in turn got bundled out for 108 with Josh Hazlewood picking 2/15 and Karn Sharma also chipping in with 2/20.