Ashwin Lambasts Lalit Modi, Michael Clarke Over Resurfacing Harbhajan-Sreesanth Slap Video

An unseen video from the inaugural 2008 Indian Premier League (IPL) surfaced on the Internet when it was released by the former IPL chairman Lalit Modi after his conversation with former Australian skipper Michael Clarke. The video showed Harbhajan Singh slapping S Sreesanth while the two teams shook hands.

Notably, that video was hidden by the IPL authorities and broadcasters as it would have negatively impacted the new league. 

However, Modi bringing that unseen footage out after 17 years of the incident, when both the players have moved forward with their lives, seemed to have not to sit right with the entire cricketing ecosystem. R. Ashwin, especially, used strong words to criticise this entire fiasco on his YouTube channel and questioned the need to release the video in the public domain. 

“It’s the head of Anaconda that keeps on rising,” Ashwin remarked, as quoted in the Indian Express. 

“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 added that Harbhajan had already apologised about the incident on his podcast, and there’s no point in trying to judge the players for something that happened more than 17 years ago. 

“See, it’s done. Harbhajan spoke about the same in our podcast earlier and how he felt,” Ashwin added. 

“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.”

Meanwhile, Sreesanth’s wife Bhuvneshwari has already expressed her serious displeasure with the video being released and shared by Modi and Clarke. 

“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,” she wrote on her Instagram stories. 

“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.”