ABHISHEK SINGH ∙ 27 Oct 2021
Harbhajan Singh reignites Lord’s fixing matter in an ugly Twitter spat with Mohammad Amir
What started out as maybe a friendly banter or to say a more of a point-scoring Tweet by former Pakistan fast bowler Mohammad Amir involving Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh, quickly escalated to a full-blown war of words between the two cricketers. The quick escalation was caused by Harbhajan Singh going so far as to bring in the darkest days of Amir’s cricketing career where he as an 18-year-old in 2010, was involved in a fixing saga that saw careers of two of his former teammates Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt getting over and he himself facing a ban of five years before re-entering the game in 2016. The tweet that instigated this fight was done by Amir after Pakistan’s now famous 10 wickets, jinx-breaking victory in the T20 World Cup against India on Sunday in Dubai. Amir mentioned the Turbanator and asked about the famous ‘TV breaking’ reference that has been made in the past by many cricketers including Harbhajan in regards to Pakistan’s losses in the World Cup. In reply to that, Bhajji tweeted a video of him smashing a six of Amir’s bowling in the final over of the 2010 Asia Cup in Sri Lanka to win a close game for India and asked if Amir’s TV was broken that day or not? While it was still funny and loved by the fans the banter that was going on between the two players. Amir then brought into the context the four sixes that former Pakistan skipper Shahid Afridi hit off Harbhajan Singh in a Test match and asked how can someone be hit for four sixes in a row in a Test. But then things got ugly as Harbhajan brought in the Lord’s fixing reference and asked how can someone bowl so big a no-ball in Test cricket and how much money did Amir receive and from whom for selling his soul and his country’s pride. After this, the matters got worse and eventually unparliamentary language was also used by Amir to score points and the fans of both cricketers got involved in the matter and many Pakistani journalists also came in support of Amir, who had announced that he won't be playing for Pakistan till the last management was involved in Pakistan Cricket Board, which has now been changed. But eventually, things settled down, although not on a happy note, still, both cricketers stopped making any more tweets tagging each other.
