Hardik Pandya wished KL Rahul on the occasion of the latter's 27th birthday and this prompted Netizens to ask the Kings XI Punjab batsman to keep his distance from the Mumbai Indians all-rounder in order to stay away from trouble.
Rahul turned 27 years old on Thursday, April 18, and many players took to their respective social media accounts to wish the batsman luck for the World Cup but Pandya's post stood out given the history between the two players. Pandya and Rahul are very good friends on and off the cricket field as they can often be seen spending time together. The two even exchange jerseys when their respective franchises meet in the Indian Premier League.
As any good friend would, Pandya took to his Instagram account and wished his teammate. He uploaded a picture of them posing together in a restaurant and captioned the image, "Brothers for life !!!!! No matter what !!! Love u bro KL Rahul happy birthday. Let's make it our year"
Pandya and Rahul have treaded down rocky paths in their respective careers this year following a massive controversy that resulted following their appearance on a popular talk show. The two cricketers were hosted by Karan Johar on his talk show Koffee With Karan and their episode was aired on January 6. This caused an immense stir as the comments made by the Indian cricketers were deemed to be "sexist" and "misogynistic".
Pandya had issued an apology for his comments but the Board of Control for Cricket in India sent both cricketers a show cause notice before suspending them. The cricketers were in Australia at the time, preparing for India's three-match ODI series which would begin on January 12 and both were sent back home. They consequently missed the entire series before their suspension was lifted later that month.
Subsequently, Pandya was called back into the national team to play in the ODIs against New Zealand but Rahul only found a place in India's A side which was playing touring England Lions team. Rahul was going through a bad patch as he was not scoring runs and thus his place in the World Cup team was put in serious jeopardy.
But Rahul managed to work his way back to the national team after finding form with the bat. Self-admittedly, both men have managed to come out of the incident wiser and have found a place in India's 15-member squad which will fly to England to participate in the ICC World Cup 2019.
But fans on social media referenced the difference in the roads to their respective comebacks and asked Rahul to keep his distance from Hardik Pandya. Here are some of the comments on Pandya's Instagram post.
pankayaw4 - Hum to doobe hai sanam tumko bhi le doobenge had faces
suraj.yadvv - Par itna fix hai dono sath me coffee nahi piyenge
_nikhil_goyal_ - Aaj mat karna bhai
ondhu13 - Savdhan rahe satark rahe
not_your_type_._ - Kabhi coffee peene sath math jaana bus
sb_trixx - Tum log aaj karke aaoge na?
honey_sungra - Lgta h fir se career barbaad krega
