Actor Anushka Sharma lashed out at batting legend Sunil Gavaskar on Friday over his comment against her husband, Royal Challengers Bangalore skipper Virat Kohli, in which he dragged in her name too.
Kohli exhibited poor form in the match against Kings XI Punjab in their IPL 2020 outing on Thursday. He put down two catches off rival skipper KL Rahul, who went on to score an unbeaten century, and then was himself dismissed for just one run off five deliveries. Kings XI Punjab won by 97 runs.
Just when Virat Kohli came in to bat, Gavaskar, while assessing his performance from the commentary box, inappropriately dragged in his wife Anushka Sharma’s name referring to a video that had gone viral during the lockdown and showed the actor bowling to the cricketer.
Here’s the actors full statement that she shared on Instagram:
“That, Mr Gavaskar, your message is distasteful is a fact but I would love for you to explain why you thought of making such a sweeping statement on a wife accusing her for her husband’s game? I’m sure over the years you have respected the private lives of every cricketer while commentating on the game. Don’t you think you should have equal amount of respect for me and us?
I’m sure you can have many other words and sentences in your mind to use to comment on my husband’s performance from last night or are our words only relevant if you use my name in the process?
It’s 2020 and things still don’t change for me. When will I stop getting dragged into cricket and stop being used to pass sweeping statements?
Respected Mr Gavaskar, you are a legend whose name stands tall in this gentleman’s game. Just wanted to tell you what I felt when I heard you say this.”
In a similar situation in 2015, Anushka was blamed for Kohli’s poor form and the cricketer had to issue a statement to stub out criticism. This was soon after India’s poor show in the Cricket World Cup.
“The stuff that happened after the World Cup semi-final, the way people reacted towards my personal life and Anushka in particular, was really disrespectful,” Kohli said at a press conference.
“I want to put this out in public because at the human level I was really hurt and wanted to express that for quite a long time,” he said.
