With the unseen footage of Harbhajan Singh slapping S Sreesanth during the first edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2008, often dubbed as ‘slapgate,’ being shared by former IPL chairman Lalit Modi on former Australian captain Michael Clarke’s podcast Beyond 23 Cricket, the 2008 incident is once again in the spotlight. While Harbhajan Singh called the reuse of the footage something with a selfish motive, former Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has termed the incident the ‘head of the anaconda that keeps on rising’ and has urged to address the issue minimally, noting that both players have moved on.
“It’s the head of Anaconda that keeps on rising. In the modern era, you have video footage of everything and everywhere. So this kind of resurfacing will keep happening. But I feel, see, this moment is not the proudest in both the player’s lives. Why raise it again? Why aggravate it unnecessarily? Sreesanth’s wife also put out a post. I think we should address it minimally,” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel.
It was in the first edition of the IPL in 2008 that Singh, who was the then-interim Mumbai Indians skipper, slapped Sreesanth, who was playing for the then Kings XI Punjab, following Mumbai Indians’ 66-run loss against the home side at the IS Bindra PCA International Stadium in Mohali. Eighteen years after the incident, Modi shared the unseen footage of Singh slapping Sreesanth. Ashwin also spoke about the incident being in the past and how the world should move past it.
“See, it’s done. Harbhajan spoke about the same in our podcast earlier and how he felt. You have done something wrong and you have to live with it. There are no two ways there. But we move past it, right? Some might have done something similar in the confines of their homes and that’s why we don’t know of it. There is no point in moral policing an issue that is done and dated. They have apologised, moved past it and I think the rest of the world should do it too,” Ashwin added.
Earlier last week, Sreesanth’s wife, Bhuvneshwari Sreesanth, also slammed Modi and Clarke for uploading the unseen footage of the incident. “Shame on you @Lalitkmodi and @Michaelclarkeofficial. You people are not even human to drag up something from 2008 just for your own publicity and views. Both @Sreesanthnair.36 and Harbhajan have long moved on, they are fathers now with children, and yet you try to throw them back into an old wound. Absolutely disgusting, heartless and inhuman,” Bhuvneshwari wrote on her official Instagram stories.
On Sunday, Singh had termed the release of the unseen footage of the incident as something with a selfish motive. “The way the video has resurfaced, that’s very wrong. I believe nobody should do that. Maybe they have some selfish motive in doing that. Because something that happened 18 years ago, people have forgotten, and they are reminding people about it. So I feel bad for whatever incident that happened during that time. Because we were playing, and everyone had things going on in their mind. Mistakes happened, and I do feel ashamed about it,” Singh told Instant Bollywood after attending a Ganesh Chaturthi pandal in Mumbai.
Singh had also talked about the incident on Ashwin’s podcast earlier. He had shared that Sreesanth’s daughter did not speak with him and it made him verge on crying. “What hurt me even after many years was when I met his daughter and I was talking to her with a lot of love and she said, ‘I don’t want to talk to you. You hit my father.’ My heart was shattered and I was on the verge of tears. I was asking myself what is the impression I’ve left on her? She must be thinking of me in a poor light, right? She sees me as the guy who hit her father. I felt so bad. I still apologise to his daughter that I can’t do anything,” Singh had said on Ashwin’s podcast.
