Those who’ve been following the Legends League Cricket watched a controversy unravel during the Eliminator between India Capitals and Gujarat Giants in Surat on Wednesday. Former Indian team players — S. Sreesanth and Gautam Gambhir — who were a part of the victorious ICC Men’s World Cup in 2011 and the T20 Men’s Cricket World Cup in 2007 engaged in a heated exchange that soon erupted into a full-blown controversy on social media.
In case you’ve missed out on what’s been broiling, here’s everything you need to know:
Gambhir was smashing boundaries to Sreeshanth’s deliveries, and the latter was not pleased. In a video that’s been going viral on X (previously, Twitter), Sreesanth can be seen giving Gambhir a long stare after he scored a four, to which the Capitals’ captain stared back.
The tension between the duo players aggravated further. Later on, a video of the two involved in a verbal exchange recorded by a spectator surfaced on social media. In the clip, the umpire can be seen pacifying the situation, pulling Sreesanth away from Gambhir.
Capitals won the match by 12 runs. During the post-match presentation ceremony, while Gambhir was talking, Sreesanth came on Instagram Live to clear the air. He called Gambhir “Mr Fighter”, who always fights with all his colleagues for no reason. He said the former Indian opener doesn’t respect his senior players, including Sehwag, and claimed he called him “something very rude” without provocation, which shouldn’t have been said.
Sreesanth’s wife, Bhuvneshwari, also commented on the Live, reacting to the incident.
A day later, Sreesanth took to Instagram Live again, revealing what broiled during the match. He claimed that Gambhir called him a “fixer”, referring to the infamous 2013 IPL spot-fixing scandal because of which Sreesanth, Ajit Chandila and Ankeet Chavan from Rajasthan Royals got banned from playing cricket. In 2019, the Supreme Court revoked the BCCI’s life ban on Sreesanth.
“This is the real truth. Whatever the videos are circulating, whatever they are doing, it’s just trying to keep that person in the best possible way”, he added. At the end of the video, he urged people to support him and warned them against falling for that “extra paid PR work that other powerful people do”.
Meanwhile, Gambhir left a cryptic message on social media...
…And Sreesanth left a charged comment on his post.
Here’s how the public has been reacting to the controversy online:
While the online world has been debating, the Legends League Cricket has served Sreesanth a legal notice over ‘breach of contract‘, reports NDTV. The report claims Sreesanth has been asked to remove all the videos of his social media rants. Additionally, it states that the on-field umpires’ report of the incident does not include any mention of Gambhir using any ‘expletive’ on the field.
Whatever happens next, only time will tell.