Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) needed to win their last league match against the defending champion Gujarat Titans (GT) to get into the IPL 2023 Playoffs, but Shubman Gill’s brilliant century knocked them out of the game. The Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), on the other hand, had already made the playoffs after beating the Kolkata Knight Riders by just one run on Saturday.
After their fight earlier this season, Afghanistan and LSG pacer Naveen-Ul-Haq and RCB batter Virat Kohli don’t like each other anymore. On Sunday, Naveen shared another “cryptic” Instagram story after Kohli’s century didn’t matter because GT won by six wickets. Fans quickly spread Naveen’s post on social media because it was clear that the pacer was making fun of Kohli and RCB.
Kohli and Naveen were embroiled in a major brawl following an IPL 2023 league match in Lucknow, which RCB won. After the match, the RCB batsman got into another brawl with LSG coach Gautam Gambhir. Kohli and Gambhir were each fined 100% of their match fees, while Naveen was fined 50% of his match money.
Since then, LSG teams have been subjected to shouts of ‘Kohli, Kohli’ wherever they have played. During their recent encounter against KKR, Naveen was seen silencing the audience at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. The event occurred during the second over of the KKR innings, when English batsman Jason Roy launched a torrent of boundaries against the Afghan pacer. The audience exploded in cries of “Kohli, Kohli,” plainly in support of Kohli, sparking a frenzy in the arena.
In response to the raucous chanting, Naveen-Ul-Haq raised his finger to his lips, motioning for the throng to remain silent. Despite his efforts to calm the crowd, the Kolkata Knight Riders’ home audience continued to pelt the bowler with Kohli shouts.
It’s worth mentioning that this isn’t the first time this has happened. Gautam Gambhir, the coach of the Lucknow Super Giants, made a similar gesture during a previous encounter at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Faf du Plessis, the captain of RCB, said he was sad that his team didn’t make it to the playoff stage. “It’s clear that this is a big letdown. We have a really good team tonight, and Shuman Gill played a great game. In the second session, there was a lot of grip. I thought a score of 195 to 200 was good. “We needed to get rid of Shubman,” Du Plessis said during the presentation after the game.
“From the point of view of our top four batters, they did a great job… Throughout the season, we kept missing a few runs, especially in the late innings. Maybe we didn’t get as many wickets as we would have liked in the middle overs. We need a strong middle order, and we need to make sure we win games. Last season, it was DK, but it wasn’t to be this season,” he said.
