Angkrish Raghuvanshi, a young prodigy for the Kolkata Knight Riders faced a lot of negative comments from fans online after he made fun of Saina Nehwal, a famous badminton player from India. Raghuvanshi started playing in the IPL in 2024 and did well with his batting. In 10 games, he scored 163 runs with a fast strike rate of 155.24. Raghuvanshi’s comment happened after Nehwal said that sports like badminton, tennis, and basketball are harder physically than cricket. She also complained that Indian fans always care more about cricket than other sports.
“People are curious about Saina’s activities, as well as those of wrestlers, boxers, and Neeraj Chopra. These athletes are well-known because they have consistently achieved success and have been featured in the news. Saina mentioned on the Nikhil Simha podcast that she feels like she’s living a dream by achieving this in India, a country where sports culture is not very strong.”
“Sometimes, I feel bad because cricket gets all the attention. The thing about cricket is… if you see badminton, basketball, tennis, and other sports, they are really physically demanding. You don’t even have time to pick up the shuttle and serve, you are like… you are breathing so hard. A game like cricket gets so much attention where I personally believe skill is more important.”
These words by Nehwal did not go well with Angkrish Raghuvanshi, who took to X (former Twitter) and wrote, “Let’s see how she goes when Bumrah bowls 150k’s bumper at her head.”
The KKR player later removed the tweet and posted an apology to Nehwal. He then wrote, “I’m sorry to everyone, I was just trying to be funny, but now I see it was a silly joke. I understand my mistake and I truly apologize.”
But this wasn’t the first time an athlete spoke up about being overlooked for other sports.
Before this, India’s badminton player Chirag Shetty criticized the Maharashtra government for honoring the T20 World Cup champions but not him, even though India won the Thomas Cup in 2022.
