
Virat Kohli and Naveen-ul-Haq were engaged in a heated exchange during Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB)'s win over the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in Lucknow in match 43 of the IPL 2023 edition on Monday (May 01). During LSG's 127-run chase, Kohli and Lucknow pacer Naveen exchanged some words and were seen having an argument during the post-match handshake as well. Afterwards, Kohli and LSG mentor Gautam Gambhir also clashed and were separated by players from both camps.
Kohli and LSG captain KL Rahul were seen having a chat after the match when Naveen crossed by and once again the duo had an animated discussion. Later on, the crowd chanted Kohli's name when the Afghanistan pacer went to receive an award during the presentation ceremony. Kohli was at his aggressive best during his side's defence of 127 and RCB skipper Faf du Plessis opined on Kohli's aggression post the LSG encounter.
"Aggression is the best version of Virat, isn't it? To see him pumped up like that, that's when he is at his very best. So it is really awesome to be a part of it and my job is to keep things calm on the field, which I thought that I did really well," Faf chuckled during the interview shared on RCB's official Twitter handle.
Du Plessis added, "The plan was to take the seamers on because we felt that hitting spin would be really difficult. It was a tough wicket, so we had to adapt and that was the most important thing. Coming from Chinnaswamy, it's a very different style of play here. I thought we were very good in the first partnership. We saw how much the ball was stopping and we tried to put our foot on the gas against seamers and then the spinners were just a case of knocking it around and trying and get a boundary now and then, but it was really tough work."
After RCB's win over LSG, they have entered the top five in the points table. They occupy the fifth position whereas Lucknow are in the third spot. Both have ten points each from nine games.