Former India pacer S Sreesanth has revealed that his daughter once refused to greet legendary spinner Harbhajan Singh. In 2008, after an Indian Premier League (IPL) match between Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) and Mumbai Indians, Harbhajan and Sreesanth had gotten into a physical altercation, which resulted in the former slapping the latter. Several pictures had circulated on social media where Sreesanth was seen crying after the incident. While the two, since then, have buried aside their differences, Sreesanth suggested the incident left a major impact on her daughter.
Sreesanth also admitted that Harbhajan didn’t him intentionally that evening.
“When I told my daughter, ‘This is Bhajji pa, he’s played with me’, she straight away said, ‘No, no, I won’t say hi’. I couldn’t understand why. In school, there may have been the odd conversation about it. There are different stories doing the rounds. Then we tried explaining, but she said she still won’t talk to him. The next day, when the legends tournament was going on, we explained that he was like our elder brother. I don’t think Bhajji pa did that deliberately. It happened in the spur of the moment. It was just a learning experience for both of us,” Sreesanth told cricket commentator Padamjeet Sehrawat on his YouTube channel.
Recently, Harbhajan, while speaking to former India all-rounder Ravichandra Ashwin, suggested that he would like to erase the incident from his life.