IPL 2023: Sourav Ganguly again pulled Virat Kohli, mentioned only Shubman Gill after the century, said this
Former Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Sourav Ganguly’s feud with former India captain Virat Kohli continues even after a cordial ‘handshake’ between the two after their last IPL 2023 match in New Delhi. Ganguly praised only one of the two hundreds – Shubman Gill – though Kohli also hit a record 7th century in the Indian Premier League in the match against Gujarat Titans on Sunday.
Ganguly only called Gill, who scored a match-winning hundred for GT and knocked RCB out of the playoff race, while choosing not to mention Kohli in his post-match tweet. Ganguly tweeted, “What a talent this country produces..Shubman Gill..wow..two brilliant innings in two halves..IPL..what a standard in the tournament.”
What a talent this country produces.. Shubman Gill.. Wow.. Two brilliant innings in two halves.. IPL.. What a standard in the tournament @bcci — Sourav Ganguly (@SGanguly99) May 21, 2023
After the first encounter of the season between the two sides in Bengaluru, both Ganguly and Kohli appeared to ignore each other during the handshake ceremony. A video had gone viral in which DC head coach Ricky Ponting could be seen asking Kohli to shake hands with Ganguly, but the former Indian captains still chose to give the handshake a pass.
However, after the exchange of words between the two sides, Ganguly ensured that he was greeted warmly by Kohli and the RCB legend also showed a big heart to shake hands with the ex-BCCI president. Ganguly also patted Kohli on the shoulder.
Kohli surpassed his former RCB teammate and West Indies batsman Chris Gayle in terms of most centuries in IPL and became the third batsman after Shikhar Dhawan (2020) and Jos Buttler (2022) to score consecutive centuries in IPL. Later on Sunday night, Shubman Gill also joined that club.
He said, ‘It was not easy to avoid spin and I think the strength of many of our fast bowlers is also decreasing rapidly. There’s a lot on this pitch for our bowlers to break into (the chase), and hitting the big shots as you saw spreading the ground in the middle overs was not as easy. So you have to hit a lot of laps and run two. If we can get those boundaries down and now allow them to get two runs from those gaps, it will be very difficult,” Kohli said during the innings break.