3 instances of a cricketer hitting out at a journalist over a news article ft. Kevin Pietersen

It has often been noticed that cricketers and journalists or the media have had strained relationships at times. The journalists, or their news articles have been called out by cricketers on multiple instances recently and in the past as well.

Most recently, former England cricketer and commentator Kevin Pietersen hit out at a journalist over a news article during the three-match ODI series between India and England.

These instances include some of the biggest names in the cricketing world calling news articles or publications out for spreading fake news involving these cricketers.

That said, let us take a look at some of these instances that angered the cricketers in a way that they had to take to social media to issue clarifications and call these articles out publicly.

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3 instances of a cricketer hitting out at a journalist over a news article

#3 Kevin Pietersen

Former England cricketer Kevin Pietersen hit out at a UK journalist, who defended England's lack of practice after they suffered a 0-3 series defeat in the ODIs against India. Pietersen had criticised the team for not training enough after they suffered a whitewash.

The journalist, however, wrote an article mentioning injuries and tight schedule as the reasons for England missing practice sessions. Pietersen then lashed out at the journalist.

"Just got sent an article where a leading UK journo has said that Shastri & I got it wrong last night when discussing England not training. Reason - injuries and quick turnaround between games…!," he wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Pietersen added that these reasons are baseless and asked the journalist to stop writing about cricket.

"Do me a f*****g favour! Stop writing about cricket if you’re going to write such rubbish. Injuries are part of sport and this schedule is like every bilateral series almost ever played. Injuries are NOT stopping batters from batting against net bowlers and learning the art of playing spin. And that’s where they should have been to IMPROVE! Trust me on this one as it saved my career against spin!," he added.

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#2 Sunil Gavaskar

Former Indian cricketer and legend Sunil Gavaskar had called out a fake blog post during the Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) 2024-25 series. A website named Cricket Ception published an article under his name during the opening Test of the series in Perth.

The article was titled - 'A New Era in Leadership: Bumrah’s Captaincy and Kohli’s Leadership Revive Team India.' However, Gavaskar called out the website saying that this was fake and that he had written no such piece.

Not only did he take to Instagram to slam the website but also threatened legal action, asking them to take it down right-away.

"Never believe everything you see on the Internet #alwaysverify," Gavaskar captioned his post on Instagram.

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#1 Virat Kohli

Former India captain Virat Kohli had once called out 'The Times of India' for publishing a fake report which claimed that Kohli and his wife Anushka Sharma were going to build a cricket pitch at their Alibaug farmhouse.

The cricketer took to social media and put up a story on his Instagram, where he called out the newspaper for publishing fake news, putting up a screenshot of the article as well. In the story, Kohli mentioned how the newspaper he grew up reading since his childhood had now started publishing fake news.

"Bachpan se jo akhbar padh rahe hain, woh bhi fake news chaapne lage ab (The newspaper I’ve been reading since childhood has also started putting out fake news)," Kohli had captioned his story (via OneCricket).