5 Times Indian Cricketers Fought With Each Other

Cricket they say is a gentleman's game. But has the sport really lived up to its tag?

We've oft-seen and oft-heard of ugly spats involving Indian cricketers and the Australians, English and Pakistani cricketers during live cricket matches. Memories of these heated moments of madness remain afresh in our minds. Truth be told, feuds between opposing players are quotidian.

However, we've rarely seen or heard of ugly spats among the Indian players themselves. I said rarely, and not never. Unfortunately, the best of friends who donned the same national jerseys have turned into the worst of foes. And when this happened, they went on to make the national headlines and hideously imprint themselves in our minds.

Here we run through the 5 instances when the Indian players fought with each other.

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#5 Munaf Patel and Amit Mishra

The incident happened during the 4th edition of the IPL when the Deccan Chargers played the Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede. Indian leg-spinner Amit Mishra, appearing for the Deccan Chargers, smashed Munaf Patel in the 20th over for a six on the first delivery and top-edged the third one for a boundary.

Infuriated, the Baroda pacer launched a verbal tirade at tail-ender Amit Mishra. The two exchanged words in an ugly verbal slug fest and MI captain Sachin Tendulkar had to intervene to stop things from getting ugly with the animated Munaf.

More drama followed as Mishra dispatched the next three deliveries to the boundary as well. On the 5th ball of the over the tension only heightened - the two India teammates collided after Mishra ran down the pitch after flicking it to the square-leg boundary. With tempers flaring high, Munaf Patel threatened to throw the ball at Amit Mishra until the matter was finally resolved by umpire S Ravi.

#4 Harbhajan Singh and Ambati Rayudu

Ambati Rayudu was in no mood to stay quiet about his feelings

Match 29 of the ninth edition of the IPL in 2016 witnessed an ugly spat involving two Mumbai Indians teammates. The incident occurred when Harbhajan Singh was bowling in the 11th over of the Pune Supergiants innings with Saurabh Tiwary and Peter Handscomb at the wicket.

When Saurabh Tiwary struck a powerful shot down the ground, Rayudu's brilliant diving effort went in vain as his desperate attempt failed to prevent the ball from reaching the boundary ropes.

Not happy with his valiant effort, Bhajji charged towards Rayudu with abuses which sparked the altercation between the two players. Rayudu gave it back and charged back at Harbhajan.

However, the off-spinner showed maturity to pacify the situation before things got out of control as he later went onto celebrate with the Hyderabad batsman after dismissing Peter Handscomb.

#3 Gautam Gambhir and Virat Kohli

Rajat Bhatia tries to cool his Delhi teammates

Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir have allowed their emotions to take control of their actions on numerous occasions. This incident happened all the way back in 2013 occurred when Royal Challengers Bangalore squared off against Kolkata Knight Rider's at the M. Chinnaswamy stadium.

While RCB were on course to chase down the total set by KKR with Virat Kohli in the middle, the two skippers ended up in a verbal dual. Having launched KKR pacer Pradeep Sangwan into the stands on two occasions, the Indian captain went hard in pursuit off another which resulted in him being dismissed. Soon the entire KKR team burst out into an exuberant celebration which ruffled Kohli. In a fit of rage, he walked towards the KKR huddle and made a few unnecessary derogatory remarks. GG, infuriated by Kohli's expletives charged towards the fuming Kohli. The incident caught everyone on and off the field by surprise and it was their Delhi state teammate Rajat Bhatia, who had to intervene to ensure that things didn't get ugly.

#2 Harbhajan Singh and Sreesanth

The slap gate got the IPL to a controversial start

The off-spin maestro has embroiled himself in controversies on many occasions. The 'monkey gate' scandal involving Andrew Symonds is perhaps the most infamous one. Coming in at a close second is the 'slap-gate' of 2008 where Bhajji slapped Punjab paceman and then Indian teammate Sreesanth in the face following the Mumbai Indians vs Kings XI Punjab game.

The Kerala pacer was seen crying bitterly on the field at the end of the game after coasting to a massive 66-run victory. On further inquiry, it was understood that the actions of the India spinner who had stood in as the Mumbai captain for the first 3 games of the tournament to that point, all of which they lost, were instigated by Sreesanth's aggressive sending-off after having dismissed him.

Match referee Farokh Engineer found Harbhajan guilty of a level 4.2 offence while the BCCI booked him under Rule 3.2.1 of their regulations. As a result, Harbhajan Singh was banned for the remainder of the 2008 IPL season in addition to being handed down the maximum punishment of five-match ban from ODIs

#1 Ravindra Jadeja and Suresh Raina

Raina and Jadeja against the Windies

Suresh Raina and Ravindra Jadeja are perhaps the closest friends in the Indian and Chennai Super Kings teams. However, there was a moment when both the players had a heated argument on the field.

The incident took place during India’s tour of West Indies in 2013. The BCCI picked the lesser selected players to play alongside the likes of Jadeja and Raina under Kohli’s leadership. In fact, there was a change in captaincy for the tour with Kohli replacing Raina who previously captained India in their tours to the lower-ranked ODI countries.

The argument began after the Windies lost their 9th wicket to Jadeja’s bowling which ended a partnership of 58 runs between tail-enders Sunil Narine and Kemar Roach. The partnership could have ended much earlier and Jadeja could have added 2 wickets to his tally if not for Raina’s drop catches of both Roach and Narine.

At the fall of a wicket, Ravindra Jadeja was seen storming towards Raina. The two layers soon got into a bitter and sneaky altercation. The two continued to argue and the situation demanded the intervention of Virat Kohli and the other players around him.

Later, several media reports revealed that the fight got intense when Jadeja accused Raina of losing interest in fielding because of having lost his captaincy.