The stage was set for another Virat Kohli vs Gautam Gambhir duel. The Round 4 of their IPL tussles to be precise. Gambhir was back with the Kolkata Knight Riders, where it all began 11 years ago against Kohli and the latter, albeit not the captain, was still the most popular figure in red and blue. Over the years both Gambhir and Kohli mellowed down with experience but such is the infamous history of on-field feuds between the two giants of IPL that it was a question of ‘when will they fight’ rather than ‘will they’ when RCB was slated to host KKR at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Stadium.
Even KKR’s official X handle promoted the contest like that by sharing a photograph of Kohli (appearing) looking towards Gambhir, who was inspecting the pitch on the eve of the contest. But Kohli and Gambhir had other ideas. The two Delhi boys decided to bury the hatchet.
During the second time out of the RCB innings after the end of the 16th over, Gambhir came out to pass on some tips to his bowlers. But when he saw Kohli, who was batting in the middle, he went up to him to shake his hands. Kohli reciprocated with a hug. The two shared some cordial words with broad smiles.
The interaction brought interesting reactions from Ravi Shastri and Suni Gavaskar who were in the commentary box at that time. While Shastri said Kohli and Gambhir deserve the fair play award, Gavaskar joked by saying they deserve an Oscar too.
The two were seen sharing another light moment in the post-match handshake sessions.
Such was the impact of Kohli and Gambhir’s lighthearted interaction that it attracted a wide range of reactions on social media.
Lucknow Super Giants, the franchise whose mentor was Gambhir when he had a huge fight with Kohli, shared the video of the incident with a witty caption.
Delhi Police’s official X handle, however, took the cake. “Jhagda hua? Dial 112 aur jhagde ko shant karo. Koi jhagda ‘Virat’ and ‘Gambhir’ nahi, (Had a fight? Dial 112 to resolve the issue. No fight is Virat or Gambhir),” they wrote on X.
Coming to the match, KKR skipper Shreyas Iyer won the toss and elected to field first. While batting first, RCB with the brilliance of Kohli’s unbeaten knock of 83 runs, the franchise scored 182/6 in 20 overs.
For KKR, two wickets each were grabbed by Harshit Rana and Andre Russell in their spells of four overs where they conceded 39 runs in their respective spells. One wicket was bagged by Sunil Narine in their respective spells of four overs, where he conceded 40 runs.
In reply to RCB’s total, KKR chased down the target of 183 runs in the 17th over with seven wickets in hand. Venkatesh Iyer scored fifty in 30 balls with the help of four sixes and three fours. Narine played a quickfire knock in the powerplay, where he scored 47 runs on just 22 balls with five maximums and two fours in his innings.
Narine was awarded Player of the Match for his all-round performance.
