'I said something about his wife' - Irfan Pathan recalls a nasty sledging incident with Kumar Sangakkara

On Saturday, Irfan Pathan, the fast bowling all-rounder from India bid adieu to international cricket. He informed his fans about his retirement on a Star Sports show. In the same show, he recalled one of the incidents from a Test match when he was indulged in an ugly war of words with Sangakara but now they are very good friends.

Irfan Pathan. was a great all-rounder, he helped India in winning games from crucial situations on numerous occasions. He acclaimed several accolades on his name during his time with the national side and one of them is the hat-trick that he took against Pakistan during a Test match. Moreover, he is the only bowler to take a hat-trick in the first over of the longer format that he took back in 2006 and its been 14 years but still none of the bowlers has succeeded in doing the same.  He is arguably one of the best swing bowlers that India has ever produced in its cricket history

Irfan Pathan recalls an incident from a Test against Sri Lanka

Irfan Pathan recalled an instance that happened during a Test match between Sri Lanka and India. The left-hand seaming all-rounder opened the innings for his side in that game as a replacement for Virender Sehwag and went onto play a magnificent knock of 93 runs. During his stay at the crease, Sangakara said something personal about his father and in reply, Indian all-rounder said something about his wife. As far as that match was concerned, both of us were not happy with each other.

“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. 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,” Irfan Pathan said on Star Sports.

However, after a few years when both played for Kings XI Punjab in IPL, they became quite close friends. Irfan Pathan also recited about the fact that for a month he was in guilt and used to ignore Sangakkara’s wife. But one day, former Sri Lankan glovemen cleared the air that it was his mistake that he said something about Indian all-rounder and then he was forced to speak something in return. And, from that day they became good friends.

“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 added.

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