Top 4 IPL – 6 Controversies

Cricket has always been a Gentleman’s game. But in the end, it’s a game and you can never name a sport without aggression. Same is with cricket. When you find people like Rahul Dravid and Mike Hussey getting involved in tiffs and blood-rush on field, you can never rule out players like Kohli and the Australians.
Here bringing you the Top 4 controversies of Pepsi IPL – 6.
1) Gambhir-Kohli Spat:
11th April, 2013- M Chinnaswamy Stadium – 80 runs required by RCB in 11 overs to win another home game. Balaji bowls a slower one and sweeper cover comes in and catches it. Kohli is out. Getting out is always frustrating for a batsman. But the best thing you can do after getting out is walk back to your dug-out. But this is Kohli. He crosses some words with his Delhi teammate Gautam Gambhir and both of them walk angrily towards each other. This could have got ugly but another Delhi teammate Rajat Bhatia intervenes in between them and pats Kohli on his way back to pavilion. The IPL has arrived. The love for the club has overcome the national side teammate here. Chats and boos echo all over with this. They exchange hand-shakes at the end of the match with smiles and comment in the press saying things like this happens in the game. But you never know, what’s in store.
2) Gambhir-Dravid Spat:
3rd May, 2013- Eden Gardens Stadium – Royals vs Knight Riders. Kolkata Knight Riders are set with a target of 133 which is quite competitive at this venue. Early wickets have always been a specialty in this ground and more by the Royals. But as Gambhir and Bisla start well, the tension and aggression could be seen on Watson who was bowling the 4th over. After getting hit for a couple of boundaries in this over, Bisla punched the last ball back to Watson who takes it and dares to throw the ball at him followed by some words. Bisla gestures Watson to try throwing the cricket ball at him. The small aggression takes on a bad turn when between the overs, Bisla tries to go to Rahul Dravid and tries saying some words to him.
Gautam joins in and some out-spoken words can be seen clearly. Rahane steps in to hold Bisla and stop the word war. You have to be ready to face a billion fans if you willing to speak on Rahul Dravid. The controversy took a worse turn when Ravinder Jadeja tweeted saying- Gautam you would have a hundred records but you lost respect from a billion blue fans. Gambhir later tweeted saying there were no harsh words exchanged between him and Dravid.
This controversy takes the number 2 spot in our list.
3) Kohli-Wankhede Problem:
We have seen an incident before when SRK has had a problem with the security personnel at Wankhede and on trying to muscle them, had been banned from Wankhede. There have been times when Wankhede crowd has booed Yuvraj Singh during IPL earlier seasons too.
This time it was Virat Kohli. Virat Kohli’s direct throw to controversially run-out Ambatai Rayudu was the reason. Vinay Kumar’s foot accidently caused Rayudu’s bat to move out of crease when Kohli hit the stumps. Mumbai won the match without any fuss but this incident made the Wankhede crowd to chant “Kohli-Cheater” during the post-match presentation.
The real scene happened when Kohli happened to say “As far as the crowd is concerned, it has happened to a few players in the past as well. I don’t know why they get so worked up during IPL. IPL is not the end of the world. And they forget that the players they are booing for also play for their country”. To add to this, he also said “You come to Bangalore and you see how Indian players are appreciated”.
4) Kings XI Punjab-Mumbai Indians (Match 41):
Umpiring blunders are not something very new to cricket. And when you mention IPL, umpiring blunders are the ones which change the course of the match.
The 41st match of this IPL was going fine all along until the last over when 17 runs were required by Punjab to win it against Mumbai with Praveen Kumar and Awana batting and Dhaval Kulkarni bowling the last over.
Last wicket, regular bowler bowling, all this seemed too easy for Mumbai to bring it home. Praveen Kumar had other plans. With a no ball bowled and a mis-timed six, Praveen Kumar had almost got his team home when a beamer from Kulkarni was judged as a legal delivery by umpire Asad Rauf. One did not have to be on field to judge that. It was a clear no-ball and Kulkarni escaped. This caused Mumbai Indians win the match with 4 runs.
Praveen Kumar literally “engulfed” the umpire after the last ball of the match and made him realize that he has done a blunder. Lucky for the bowler and Mumbai Indians and unfortunate for Praveen Kumar. And after his recent activity of slapping a player in a domestic game, Praveen Kumar could keep his anger in check this time.

We welcome your comments at letters@friedeye.com