Credit: X
Angkrish Raghuvanshi, 19, the Kolkata Knight Riders player, has apologised for his disrespectful remark towards the Indian badminton star, Saina Nehwal, on the social media platform X. After the Olympic bronze medalist claimed that badminton, basketball, and tennis are physically tougher to play in comparison to cricket, Angkrish Raghuvanshi mocked the statement by telling her to face Jasprit Bumrah’s bouncers at 150 kmph.
Notably, the Mumbai-born cricketer made his IPL debut in 2024 with Kolkata Knight Riders, scoring 163 runs at a strike rate of 155.24 in 10 innings, to make a big name for himself as a teenager. He also went on to win the IPL trophy with KKR, who defeated SRH in a one-sided final at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai two months ago.
Watch Saina Nehwal comparing different sports:
During the Nikhil Simha podcast, Saina Nehwal spoke about how cricket gets all the attention among Indian sporting fans although other sports are doing well. She remarked, “Sometimes, (I) feel bad that cricket gets that attention. I have one thing about cricket is... if you see badminton, basketball, tennis, and of course, the other sports are so tough physically. You don’t even have time to pick up the shuttle and serve, you are like... 20 seconds of run, you just breathing so hard. And the game like cricket gets that kind of attention where I think personally skill is more important.”
Upon hearing her comments, the youngster Angkrish Raghuvanshi couldn’t control his emotions and wrote on X, in a now-deleted post, “Let’s see how she (Nehwal) goes when Bumrah bowls 150k’s bumper at her head.”
Following a plethora of criticism on X, he went on to delete his post on his official X account. He also wrote a post in apology, which read, “I’m sorry everyone, I meant my remarks as a joke, looking back I think it was a really immature joke. I realize my mistake and I sincerely apologize.”
