What started with normal leg-pulling soon turned into an ugly slugfest between Indian off-spinner Harbhajan Singh and Pakistani left-arm pacer Mohammad Amir.
The two key arch-rival players launched a no-holds-barred verbal attack on each other on Twitter late on Tuesday and in the early hours of Wednesday, just a couple of days after Pakistan’s 10-wicket victory over India in their opening game of the T20 World Cup.
Harbhajan and Amir shared a series of tweets with each other which involved the veteran India off-spinner reminding the Pakistan left-arm pacer about the spot-fixing scandal in England, which halted Amir’s cricket career for half a decade.
The Twitter war between the two bowlers started when Amir tagged Harbhajan in a tweet asking how he was coping with the defeat after Pakistan’s first-ever victory in any World Cup match against India after 12 straight losses.
Responding to Amir’s tweet, in which he had made fun of Indian off-spinner over Pakistan’s 10-wicket win over India, Harbhajan, who has already been involved in leg-pulling with former Pakistan pacer Shoaib Akhtar, shared a video from the 2010 Asia Cup, where he had hit the winning 6 against the left-arm pacer to win the 2010 Asia Cup match.
Hitting back at Harbhajan, Amir shared a 2006 Test match video in Lahore where Shahid Afridi had hit 4 consecutive sixes against the off-spinner.
This turned ugly soon and triggered the Twitter war of words into personal rivalry.
In the next tweet, Harbhajan reminded the former Pakistan pacer of his involvement in the 2010 spot-fixing scandal in the Lord’s Test against England. In his tweet, he asked serious questions to Amir that what happened at Lords? How much did you take and who paid you? How can you bowl a no-ball in Test cricket?
The feud did not stop there as Harbhajan tweeted Amir’s Lord’s Test no-ball picture a couple more times and another video of his winning 6 against Pakistan in the 2010 Asia Cup.
In response, Amir too took a few digs at Harbhajan about his illegal bowling action as his action has been reported illegal in the past before it was cleared.