And cricketers aren’t an exception to that. In fact, there have been occasions when they’ve left people feeling bad for their PR teams – if everyone wasn’t fuming, that is. Here are a few examples. 

1. Shoaib Akhtar’s autobiography was true to its name, Controversially Yours, and had many debatable claims. One of them was this.

2. After Pakistan’s loss to India in the 2011 World Cup, Shahid Afridi was not happy with the celebrations on this side of the border – which is strange, but anyway, he took it personally and made this disruptive remark. 

Needless to say, it was followed by great deal of criticism from Indian players and media alike. 

3. Back in 2011, VVS Laxman survived a DRS call, and Vaughan cheekily suggested that it might be vaseline that rescued him (Hotspot reportedly can’t catch signals if you apply lubricants on a surface).

4. Sourav Ganguly and Greg Chappell were never cordial and it wasn’t something anyone had to guess. They were very straightforward. Like Chappell here.

5. Earlier this year, Chris Gayle failed to get a call from Jamaica Tallawahs in the Caribbean Premier League and he thought Sarwan was to be blamed for it. We don’t know who was responsible for what happened, but Gayle’s choice of words certainly left many uncomfortable.

6. Virat Kohli’s reply to a person who said he doesn’t like Indian batsmen, led to a huge furor on social media, with people questioning his sensibilities. It wasn’t pretty at all. 

7. A forgettable line from Majrekar made unforgettable by Jadeja by his performances in World Cup, 2019. The commentator later apologised for his words but you best believe he still gets taunted by people for making that remark. 

8. During one of the recent IPL matches, Gavaskar, allegedly referring to a video of Anushka and Virat playing on their terrace, said the following statement. It doesn’t take much to know that it was unwarranted and Anushka even called him out for the same (something that was badly required).

9. Pakistani players are famous for making big claims, like Shahid Afridi, here.

10. And Razzaq, here.

This one was trending on Twitter for days, as Indian cricket fans gave it back to him for insulting the country’s – and arguably the world’s best bowler. 

11. Everyone knows the story behind this. India was playing against Australia. India was playing in Australia. The match was close. But India won.


Shastri –

12. Sehwag said this during the IPL auction, 2018. No one batted an eyelid really because ‘it was all in fun’. Sure.

13. Back in 2007, Ian Chappell had, what he must have thought, solid advice. It was not, because Sachin went on to play for 6 more years and won his first and only World Cup trophy in that time period.

14. Undermining the importance of India’s domestic cricket and Mayank’s prolific achievement in one go, O’Keefe made this statement.

15. And then to top it, he forgot Pujara’s name a few days later.

To no one’s surprise, he received heavy backlash for his reckless comments, which apparently left him ‘devastated‘. 

16. Naseer tried to get away with this one by saying ‘donkey’ is commonly used as a harmless slang in England but of course no one bought it. 

Foot, meet mouth.