Bollywood actor Anushka Sharma has in a strongly worded response, slammed former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar over a distasteful and sexist comment he made against her, while talking about her husband Virat Kohli’s performance in an IPL match on Thursday. Gavaskar said something to the effect of how Virat only practiced bowling with Anushka, and that wasn’t going to help his performance on the cricket pitch.
Anushka Sharma took to Instagram to call out Sunil Gavaskar’s distasteful message. “That, Mr Gavaskar, your message is distasteful is a fact but I would love for you to explain why you thought of making such a sweeping statement on a wife accusing her for her husband’s game? I'm sure over the years you have respected the private lives of every cricketer while commentating on the game. Don't you think you should have equal amount of respect for me and us?”
In Thursday's game, Virat dropped two simple catches in the field when KL Rahul was batting. Rahul went on to score 132 off 69 balls to lead KXIP to a daunting target of 207.
While commentating during the Indian Premier League (IPL) match between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Kings XI Punjab on Friday, Gavaskar said, “During the lockdown, he just practiced Anushka's bowling. Nothing is going to come of that,” he said. To this, his co-commentator remarked, “They were practicing in their apartment. Privacy is not there even then, someone took a video of that from the adjacent apartment also.” Virat was then dismissed for 1 in RCB's run chase.
This did not go down well with fans, who took to social media to criticise Gavaskar’s distasteful comment.
Well done @AnushkaSharma for calling out this callous and sexist behaviour . I Hope Mr. #SunilGavaskar realises that this is not how a “legend” or a “gentleman“ behaves .Do not incite the trolls further . Stop normalising casual sexism pic.twitter.com/rdQCVaH7qw
— Rudrani Chattoraj (@rudrani_rudz) September 25, 2020
How can #SunilGavaskar make such an obscene comment about @AnushkaSharma ? I’m in disbelief. And speechless.
— Chaiti Narula (@Chaiti) September 25, 2020
Absolutely disgusting and cheap comment by #SunilGavaskar .Seems he is lately having conversations with some unemployed crooks.The words chosen are of very low standard.Pathetic pic.twitter.com/kZOIhupQc1
— Sambeet kumar mohapatra (@sambeet42) September 25, 2020
What #SunilGavaskar said was totally distasteful...saying that was being out of mind.We know SG have done soo much in his career ,but that doesn't gives him right to slam such comments on @AnushkaSharma
— Ayushi Sinha (@Onedire05486608) September 25, 2020
DK why but she has always been dragged in @imVkohli 's poor performances?! pic.twitter.com/j3vhDqV6SJ
Well said @AnushkaSharma Comments like what #SunilGavaskar said really need to stop, it's really backwards and very, very unnecessary. pic.twitter.com/s0dO45ahGo
— Anushka Arora (@Anushka_Arora) September 25, 2020
In her response on Friday, Anushka also questioned Sunil Gavaskar’s choice of words. “I'm sure you can have many other words and sentences in your mind to use to comment on my husband's performance from last night or are your words only relevant if you use my name in the process? It's 2020 and things still don't change for me. When will I stop getting dragged into cricket and stop being used to pass sweeping statements?”
This is not the first time this sort of misogyny has surfaced towards Anushka. Earlier too, the actor has been unreasonably blamed for Virat’s performance on the field. In 2019, she put out a statement addressing the same as well.
“I have stayed quiet through all the times I was blamed for the performance of my then boyfriend, now husband Virat and continue to take the blame for the most useless things involving Indian cricket. I kept quiet then. My name has been used in fabricated stories claiming that I am part of closed-door team meetings and influenced selection processes and I have kept silent. My name has been wrongfully used to say how I have been given preferential treatment or how I have overstayed my authorised time with my husband on foreign tours which if anyone really cared about finding facts from the board, would know that I have always and always followed protocol but yet. I kept quiet,” Anushka said in an Instagram post from 2019.
“Respected Mr. Gavaskar, you are a legend whose name stands tall in this gentleman's game. Just wanted to tell you what I felt when I heard you say this,” she added.
Anushka and Virat are expecting a child in January 2021.