Afghanistan fast bowler Naveen-ul-Haq has made quite a few headlines ever since his altercation with Virat Kohli during the 2023 Indian Premier League (IPL).
Kohli tried playing mind games with Naveen when the latter was batting against the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) on May 1. However, the fiery Afghan didn't hold back, as most would do against a character like Kohli.
RCB went on to win the game, but the fight didn't end there. Some words were exchanged between them during the team handshakes at the end of the match. Naveen also posted a cryptic story on social media after the game, which made headlines.
In fact, his Instagram stories have been in the limelight since IPL 2023. Yesterday, Naveen-ul-Haq posted a story on Instagram aimed towards the Australian national cricket team.
He called them out for canceling the bilateral series earlier this year due to Taliban restrictions on women's rights.
The story read:
"Refusing to play the bilateral series, now It will be interesting to see cricket Australia stand in the WorldCup #standrads #humanrights Or 2 points"
Afghanistan play Australia on November 7, with both teams still in the race for a semi-final spot, and this story by Naveen could make the encounter spicy.
On that note, let's look at three instances when Naveen-ul-Haq made headlines with an Instagram story.
#1 After the game against RCB
Naveen-ul-Haq first came into the limelight during the game against RCB, where Kohli sledged him towards the end of the second innings. Although Naveen gave it back to the RCB icon both during and after the match, he also posted a story later on.
The Afghan pacer posted a story that read:
"You get what you deserve that's how it should be and that's how it goes"
He also told one of his Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) teammates that he had come to India to play cricket and that he wouldn't sit quietly and hear abuse from other cricketers.
#2 During RCB's loss against the Mumbai Indians
The cryptic stories by Naveen-ul-Haq continued throughout the IPL 2023 as he kept mocking RCB whenever they lost a match. The Faf du Plessis-led side were beaten convincingly by the Mumbai Indians (MI) on May 9, courtesy of Suryakumar Yadav's 83 off just 35 balls.
Naveen took to Instagram and shared a story that featured a photo of him watching the MI vs RCB match while eating mangoes.
He captioned the story:
"Sweet mango's"
The story garnered a lot of hate for both him and LSG as Kohli and RCB fans commented on their posts in support of their beloved team. The hate comments went to such an extent that LSG had to mute words like "mango", "mangoes", "sweet", and "aam" on their Twitter handle.
#3 When RCB were knocked out of IPL 2023
RCB were knocked out of the yearly T20 competition after they failed to beat the Gujarat Titans (GT) on May 21. Kohli's century went in vain as Shubhman Gill scored an even quicker ton to give GT the win.
Naveen-ul-Haq posted a story where a man is simply laughing. LSG had qualified for the playoffs while RCB had bowed out of the tournament, which was the dig he was taking at the Bangalore-based outfit.
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