Irfan Pathan Recalls Incident When He Dragged Kumar Sangakkara's Wife During Sledge-Fest
Published - 05 Jan 2020, 02:13 PM | Updated - 23 Aug 2024, 12:03 AM
Irfan Pathan, on Saturday, announced his retirement from all forms of cricket. Soon after announcing his decision, the former India allrounder went down the memory lanes and recalled the fond moments of his career. And amidst all that, he also recalled an incident when he and Kumar Sangakkara were engaged in an ugly war of words during a Test match in Delhi.
Irfan Pathan narrated the incident involving Sangakkara when they were playing against each other at the Feroz Shah Kotla in 2005. The former allrounder was asked to open the innings in the second innings of the match since regular opener Virender Sehwag was ruled out with an injury in that game.
Irfan Pathan totally justified the decision by top-scoring for the hosts with 93 and helped the team beat Sri Lanka by 188 runs in the first match of the series. And while Irfan Pathan was busy taking the game away from Sri Lanka, Sangakkara decided to sledge him only to get a fitting reply from the India star.
“I remember one of the stories with (Kumar) Sangakkara. We were playing in Delhi. I scored about 93 in the 2nd innings when (Virender) Sehwag got injured. I was sent up the order. At that time, Sangakkara knew the match was going away from them. (Muttiah) Muralitharan was bowling really well. He was just trying to tell me something very nasty,” recalled Irfan Pathan.
“He said something personal, I said something personal to him. I said something about his wife, he said something about my father and my mother. At that time, we were not happy with each other,” Pathan said on Star Sports.
Foe turned friends:
After turning up at each other in Delhi, Irfan Pathan and Sangakkara buried the hatchet soon when they played together for Kings XI Punjab in the Indian Premier League.
“After some time, we were playing in the same team for Kings XI Punjab. I remember, for a month, as soon as his wife used to come on the right, I used to go left. One day, Sangakkara came and said… ‘you remember this guy, he is the guy who said something about you’. I said sorry. And then Sangakkara explained, I said something first and then only he said something about you. It ended that way. There is no hard feeling and then we became friends,” Pathan revealed.
Irfan Pathan, meanwhile, made his debut way back in 2003 as a 19-year old and bowed out as one of the finest allrounders to have played for India. He represented India in 29 Tests, 120 ODIs and 24 T20Is. The all-rounder picked up 301 international wickets and scored more than 2500 runs across formats.
