Table of Contents
Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar said that the no-handshake incident between Virat Kohli and Travis Head was incomparable to the time he had walked off the ground against Australia himself.
After Friday's clash between the Royal Challengers Bengaluru and the Sunrisers Hyderabad, Kohli and Head did not shake hands owing to an on-field spat between the two earlier in the game.
The Virat Kohli and Travis Head incident
During RCB's chase of 255 on Friday, Kohli and Head were seen having a go at each other. Head reportedly had some choice words to say about Kohli's batting, and also apparently made some comments about Venkatesh Iyer's batting. Kohli was seen taunting Head to bowl with the Impact Player gesture as well.
When Kohli got out, Head allegedly said something to the effect of Kohli getting out before he was needed to bowl. After the match, Kohli shook hands with the rest of the SRH side, but deliberately and dramatically ignored Head. Sanctions haven't been brought against either party yet.
The Sunil Gavaskar incident
The Gavaskar incident took place during a Test match between India and Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 1981.
During India's second innings, Gavaskar was batting on 70 when he was given lbw off Dennis Lillee, breaking India's opening stand of 165.
Gavaskar, who was the India captain at the time, was so furious at the decision that he simply walked off the ground and called his opening partner, Chetan Chauhan, with him. India's team manager stopped Chauhan and urged him to return.
Chauhan returned to the field and continued to 85 before becoming the second of Lilee's four scalps in the innings. In the fourth innings, Kapil Dev took an excellent five-wicket haul in the fourth innings as India defended a very low target of 143.
That win helped India level the three-match series 1-1. It was the first time that India had come back from Australia without losing the Test series. The video of the incident has been shared and reshared many times on social media.
Anybody can snap- Sunil Gavaskar
Sunil Gavaskar sat down with former Australia skipper Allan Border on the Midwicket Stories talk show and revisited the incident. Border played in that Test in 1981, but was not the captain. “Nothing similar happened, nowhere to be compared. You will have to ask both of them what happened,” said Gavaskar while weighing the two incidents against each other.
“In the heat of the moment, things happen; anybody can snap. During our time, there weren’t stump mics, so nothing went out. But with stump mics, you can hear what goes on. At the end of the day, when you play for your country, you give just about everything, blood, sweat, toil, and tears," Sunil Gavaskar continued.
“Everything goes to the public domain a lot sooner… the clip that you saw of 1981, there have been videos of the 1981 incident, but two people in AB and me talking about it, that’s probably the first time where people got to know what happened, so it’s taken that long,” Sunil Gavaskar stated. “But now thanks to social media, it’s probably a lot more immediate in how it will come through.”
