Kohli after his altercation with Gambhir: 'If you can give it, you got to take it'

Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir are not IPL captains anymore, but they were still involved in a heated exchange after Royal Challengers Bangalore beat Lucknow Super Giants by 18 runs. It was over 10 years after their altercation in the IPL during RCB’s match against Kolkata Knight Riders in Bengaluru. Kohli now plays for RCB as a specialist batter, and Gambhir is retired and works as the global mentor at LSG.

While the players were shaking hands after the game, there seemed to be words exchanged between LSG bowler Naveen-ul-Haq and Kohli. This was followed by Gambhir pulling away his side’s opening batter Kyle Mayers from a chat with Kohli.

If you can give it, you gotta take it. Otherwise don’t give it

Virat Kohli

Seconds later, Gambhir was seen approaching Kohli aggressively with his players, including the injured captain KL Rahul, restraining him. Once the two got in each other’s faces, Kohli seemed to be trying to pacify Gambhir with his hand on Gambhir’s shoulder, but the chat soon turned hostile and veteran spinner Amit Mishra stepped in between the two to separate them from each other.

The IPL penalised both Kohli and Gambhir by fining them 100% of their match fees. They were found to be in breach of article 2.21 of the tournament’s code of conduct, which covers all type of conduct that brings the game into disrepute, including unruly public behaviour. Naveen copped a smaller fine, 50% of his match fees.

Kohli had seemed extra animated throughout the fielding innings as RCB successfully defended 126 in an away match that had more crowd support for the visitors than the hosts. He shushed the crowd after taking a catch to dismiss Krunal Pandya, which might possibly have been a response to Gambhir shushing the Bengaluru crowd after a last-ball win in the earlier fixture between the two sides. He even had a heated exchange with Naveen during the 17th over of the chase when the game was all but over. Mishra and an umpire had to intervene then.

The match certainly seemed to have the air of a grudge match, which spilled onto the social media of both the sides. An RCB team insider immediately retweeted LSG’s tweet from after the last match that said, “Ladies and gentlemen, this how you… PLAY BOLD.” It seemed to be a mockery of RCB’s catchphrase. After this win, RCB’s official handle tweeted Kohli’s photo shushing the crowd with the caption: “What goes around comes around.”

*A candid shot of Kohli in a dressing room reactions video put up on RCB’s YouTube page showed him saying, “That’s a sweet win boys. A sweet win. If you can give it, you got to take it. Otherwise don’t give it.”

Later, speaking to the camera, he added, “It was a really important win for us. The fact that we got more support from the home crowd is an unbelievable feeling. It tells you all about how much we are liked as a team and how people come out and back us. It’s a very sweet win. Feels very good for many reasons but most importantly for the kind of character we showed defending that total. I think everyone had the belief that we could do it and we were on the winning side which is great.”

The RCB captain had no problems with the spectacle. “That’s the best version of Virat, isn’t it?” Faf du Plessis said. “To see him pumped up like that. That’s when he’s at his best. It’s really awesome to be a part of it. My job is to keep things calm on the field, which I thought we did really well.”

And director of operations Mike Hesson admitted that some of the needle stemmed from the two teams’ first meeting at this IPL. “I guess after the last match at the Chinnaswamy, where we lost off the last ball, it always felt like we were really desperate to get this one. So I think you probably saw a little bit of that boil over tonight.”

After the altercation with Gambhir, Kohli was seen having a long chat with Rahul, who had earlier injured his hip flexor badly. He also had amicable chats with LSG allrounder Marcus Stoinis.

*May 2, 5am GMT: This story was updated with content from RCB’s social media

This article was originally published by Espncricinfo.com. Read the original article here.

Kohli after his altercation with Gambhir: ‘If you can give it, you got to take it’

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