Sehwag and Gambhir at war again over Ishant's IPL auction base price

Ishant Sharma looked all set to miss out on IPL 2017 after no team wanted to pay his base price of Rs.2 crore at the player auction in February. Many people had criticized the Indian pacer for setting the base price too high including Ishant’s former India teammate, Gambhir who said, “Nobody will pay Rs 2 crore for 4 overs. I am surprised to see Ishant’s base price.”

Yesterday, however, Kings XI Punjab head coach Sehwag announced Ishant as a replacement for injured skipper Murali Vijay and has hit back at his former opening partner by speaking at the official jersey launch of the Punjab team. In his typical and flamboyant style, Sehwag came out with all guns blazing protecting his newest acquisition.

“Tell me one thing, who pays your Rs 12 crore for playing 60 balls then?” Sehwag said.  

Despite being one the most successful opening partners in Indian cricket history the Delhi duo has had a fractious relation at times. This is not the first time the two have been on opposite sides of an argument. Matters escalated quickly when Gambhir hit out at all trollers and haters of Gurmehar Kaur, who initiated a peace campaign between India and Pakistan, including Sehwag who had trolled the girl with a picture on Twitter.

Given the way that things stand between the two ‘friends’, it will be interesting to see what lies in store when their respective sides take on each other at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata, on April 13th.