Naveen Ul Haq and Virat Kohli face off in IPL 2023 [X.com]
With the Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) naming pacer Naveen Ul Haq in the national men's ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 squad, social media is already celebrating this announcement by posting about mangoes all over the microblogging platform 'X'.
Naveen has now become a synonymous with mangoes in India, following his antics during Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 as the bowler turned up for Lucknow Super Giants (LSG). Fans have already started looking forward to the India-Afghanistan clash, which will once again pit former captain Virat Kohli and Haq in the field.
Both were engaged in an on-field tussle during Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB)'s clash against LSG in Lucknow.
Since that episode, Haq has constantly shared posts on his social media handles regarding mangoes, which became an instant troll-able activity for fans.
Origin behind Naveen's mangoes
Known for being quite expressive on social media, Naveen shared a picture of himself feasting on mangoes after Kohli's dismissal against Mumbai Indians and continued the trend in upcoming games as well where the star batter failed to produce results.
For the uninitiated, while Kohli is widely known as 'King Kohli', is fondly called 'Cheeku' by his teammates, and mango is known as king of the fruits. So trying to take a dig at the former India batter, the Afghan pacer tried to showcase that the real king is mango, and was seen enjoying the fruit.
Even Haq's IPL franchise joined in the banter, and muted all words related to 'Mango' on their social media platform 'X'.
The Backlash
The internet did not take kindly to Haq's jibe at Kohli and came down heavy on the 23-year-old pacer in a hilariously and savagly manner. Food delivery platforms Swiggy and Zomato were the first ones to hit back at Haq via their posts, which witnessed a flurry of replies trolling the Ypung player.
Both delivery giants posted images of mangoes on respective platforms after Mumbai Indians knocked Lucknow Super Giants out of IPL 2023 in Eliminator.
Several Mumbai Indians, too, were not behind where reserve players like Kumar Kartikeya, Vishnu Vinod, and Sandeep Warrier shared picture where the trio was seated on a dining table with all varities of mangoes kept on it.
The three players recreated the famous "Three wise monkeys" idea of Mahatma Gandhi. The post was latter deleted from social media.
However, it will be interesting how things pan out for both Kohli and Haq, when India and Afghanistan face-off against each other on October 9 at Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi.
 "Vishal Mehra")
