IPL 2018: Five biggest controversies of the season
In the 2018 edition of the IPL, we witnessed several unfortunate turn of events, be it a rumoured tiff between a franchise owner and its coach or a captain hurling abuses at a young bowler.
4. Rumoured tiff between Preity Zinta and Virender Sehwag
Power tussles between franchise owners and their respective coaches or players isn’t something new in the history of the IPL. In the early years, there had been rumours of a tussle between KKR owner Shah Rukh Khan and the-then KKR captain Sourav Ganguly over decisive matters regarding the team. In 2018, a rumoured spat between Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) owner Preity Zinta and mentor Virender Sehwag made headlines.
The unceremonious defeat that KXIP faced at the hands of the Rajasthan Royals (RR) while chasing a paltry target of 159 runs allegedly prompted Zinta to have a verbal showdown with Sehwag. The move to promote KXIP skipper Ravichandran Ashwin up the order on the day backfired as he was dismissed for a duck and Punjab’s batting crumbled to bits. Zinta is said to have reprimanded the former India opener a little too harshly for having tinkered unnecessarily with the batting order.
However, Zinta vehemently refuted the reports in a subsequent tweet, calling them a “blown out of proportions” view of what had actually happened. KXIP co-owner, Mohit Burman claimed that there was no trouble between Zinta and Sehwag, even as rumours of the veteran cricketer being inclined to sever ties with the team over this scandal were doing the rounds.
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