Follow UsThe Digvesh Rathi vs Abhishek Sharma fight in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 meant that people started comparing it with some of the vintage fights in the 18-year-old league, going back as far as the inaugural edition in 2008.
This also gives us an opportunity to look at the top three fights or the ugliest yet entertaining moments in IPL history.
If it comes to fights, then an even better reaction than Abhishek Sharma gesturing to Rathi that he will tie up his hair, is Kieron Pollard literally throwing the bat at Mitchell Starc, during a fight between the duo at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai in IPL 2014.
It was in the 17th over of the Mumbai Indians (MI) innings that Pollard, who was batting on 20 off 23 balls, tried to hook a bouncer from Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB)’s Starc. However, after he failed to do that, Starc said something to him, to which Pollard responded by asking the bowler to get back to his bowling run-up.
On the next ball, Starc, running in, was made to wait as Pollard pulled up going towards the leg side. Instead of holding up, Starc continued his run-up and in fact threw the ball viciously towards the area Pollard was standing in. The ball didn’t hit the West Indian, but it sure riled him up as he threw the bat towards Starc, but made sure that it landed well in front of the Aussie bowler.
The umpires, Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli and others, had to rush to both the players as Pollard was seen chatting animatedly and so was Starc to the umpires.
Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir too had a fight to remember in the IPL 2013. However, the most iconic image from that fight includes Rajat Bhatia pushing Kohli back with one hand and with the other, gesturing to Gambhir to stay back as well. But what led to this ugly fight between two Delhi players?
In the match, taking place at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, Kohli got out into a trap set-up by Gambhir and the bowler Laxmipathy Balaji, where the batter was caught at deep extra cover.
Instead of walking back to the pavilion, Kohli charged towards the KKR players celebrating and Gambhir, captain of the purple and gold brigade, held no bars and rushed towards Kohli as well. Both the players exchanged expletives while Bhatia, another Delhi Ranji player, did the work of calming both. Being a senior to both Kohli and Gambhir, Bhatia’s wisdom prevailed. The fight ended there.
Referred to as ‘Slapgate’, the fight between Harbhajan Singh and S Sreesanth is the first, possibly the ugliest and with the biggest ramifications in IPL history. It was after the end of the match between MI and Kings XI Punjab (now known as Punjab Kings) at the PCA Stadium in Mohali in 2008 that images of a crying Sreesanth were all over the TV screens.
On the next morning, it was all on the news as well, and it was found out that Harbhajan, the stand-in captain of MI, had slapped the Kerala paceman after the latter had said something ‘offensive’.
Though Yuvraj Singh and Tom Moody, Punjab’s captain and coach, had looked really upset over the incident, Sreesanth, after being seen crying, said, "It is normal. Nothing serious happened. It is all in the game. I am fine. We will still be part of the national team.”
In the end, Harbhajan was slapped with a heavy fine with an 11-match ban, which meant that he was not allowed to take part in the remainder of the inaugural IPL season.