Eighteen years after Harbhajan Singh slapped S Sreesanth after an IPL game between Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab in Mohali, the fast bowler says he will forgive the spinner but he will never forget him. The revisiting of the incident came after Harbhajan did an advertisement strongly inspired by the incident and asked Sreesanth to put out a story on this. “I never had a problem until last month, until he was part of an ad and made money, for which he was paid around Rs 80 lakh to Rs 1 crore. He asked me to put that as a story on my Instagram,” he recollects in a chat with Mathrubhumi.com.
Sreesanth said he instantly told him: “I will forgive but will never forget it. If someone commits a mistake towards us, we will forgive but we should never forget.” He added: “If we forget, that person will commit the same mistake again.
He was referring to a recent advertisement for a retail seller, where Harbhajan is yelling at a group of people trying to fix electronic equipment by beating them: “Sahi se thappad lagao, sab theek ho jata hain.” Roughly translated as, “Slap them properly. You can fix everything” He illustrated how to give the perfect slap: “Keep your hand at a 45 degree angle.” He slaps the air a few times, and says: “Kinetic energy, potential energy. Haath sein nahin dil se maro.” Beat with heart, not just hands. Then he beats a refrigerator, beside a mechanic he calls “Shreeman” and sports a headband like Sreesanth in his playing days.
The advertisement incensed Sreesanth. He instantly blocked him on Instagram. He came on Ashwin’s show and spoke about my daughter — that he felt sad when she refused to shake hands with him at an event. Seeing this, some people would believe that he is such a nice guy. Perhaps he really is, but for me personally, since the days in the Indian team, I have felt that it is all his acting,” Sreesanth said.
On the handshake incident itself, Sreesanth had tried to explain the context to his daughter. “I explained that he was like our elder brother. I don’t think Bhajji pa did that deliberately. It happened on the spur of the moment. It was just a learning experience for both of us,” he said.
“He was a brother once, but not after the advertisement. I don’t have any relationship with him. I don’t have any complaints against him, and I don’t need him. May god bless his family,” he added.
In public, Harbhajan and Sreesanth had long buried the hatchet after the incident that cost the off-spinner an 11-match suspension and 730,000 USD fine. They had shared public space together and acted in a commercial for a food retailer when Sreesanth and Harbhajan are locked in an elevator and the former says: “Let’s settle the matter once and for all.” In his chat with R Ashwin on “Kutti Stories with Ash”, he said: ”One thing I’d want to change in my life is that incident with Sreesanth. I want to remove that incident from my career,” Harbhajan said.
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“I apologised 200 times. What I felt so bad was even years after that incident, I have been apologising every opportunity or stage I get. It was a mistake,” he added. Sreesanth would call him a “class guy.” “He is a very supportive guy. Even during broadcasting, he is someone who really helps me out. When I went to WTC (for broadcasting), he was the one who literally told me, how to do and when to do. I am genuinely grateful to him, for he is always supportive, calls me and messages me, and talks to my kids,” he told Life of Beer Biceps.
He even said: “Maybe that incident happened for a good reason!’
The incident recaptured the public imagination after former IPL commissioner Lalit Modi recently released a 56-second clip of the incident, to which Harbhajan alleged “personal conspiracy”. “The way the video has been leaked, it’s wrong,” he told IANS. “Whatever happened was wrong, and I have already apologised for it. What happened between me and Sreesanth at that time was not right. As a sportsman, I don’t think I should have done that. People learn from their mistakes, and if I had enough understanding back then, I wouldn’t have done it,” he added. But a commercial eighteen years later has reawakened the old ghosts.
