Sreesanth stopped being polite about it.
“I challenge you, Bhajji bro. Come in the boxing ring with me.”
S Sreesanth, The Lallantop, June 20, 2026
He said it on camera, staring at an old photo of himself and Harbhajan Singh in boxing gloves. Eighteen years after Harbhajan slapped him on a cricket field, Sreesanth wants a real fight this time.
The slap happened in Mohali in 2008, after a Mumbai Indians versus Kings XI Punjab match. Harbhajan hit Sreesanth during the handshake line.
Sreesanth broke down in tears. Teammates stepped in to calm things down. Harbhajan was banned for the rest of that IPL season, and the BCCI added a five-match ban on top.
For years after that, the story looked closed. Harbhajan apologised again and again, and the two were seen together on television and at public events.
Then last August, old security camera footage of the actual slap surfaced on a podcast. Nobody knew it existed. It reopened a chapter both men had called finished.
Around the same time, Harbhajan told Ravichandran Ashwin he had apologised two hundred times already. He said he still wished he could erase that one moment from his career.
In January this year, Harbhajan starred in a Flipkart advert built around the slap, joking about the “correct” way to hit a broken appliance. Trade press flagged the casting as risky the week it released, months before Sreesanth said anything publicly.
By April, Sreesanth had seen enough. He said Harbhajan was paid between eighty lakh and a crore rupees for that ad. He said this, not the old slap, was what actually broke something between them.
He blocked Harbhajan on Instagram after that.
Harbhajan has still not addressed any of this directly. After the boxing challenge went viral, he posted a short Instagram video with a Hindi line about empty vessels making the most noise. He did not name Sreesanth.
View this post on Instagram
A week later, Sreesanth went further. He said Harbhajan was upset back in 2008, when Kings XI Punjab paid two and a half crore rupees to sign him ahead of that very first IPL season.
He called it jealousy. This is Sreesanth’s account, not a confirmed fact, and Harbhajan has not responded to it either.
Insider Read:
An auction price never really leaves a dressing room. It gets read out loud in front of every player in the league, and teammates remember who got paid what for years after.
If Sreesanth genuinely believes Harbhajan was rattled by his price tag back in 2008, that is not a random insult. It is the oldest and most specific dig one cricketer keeps for another.
It also explains why the peace between them never fully held. Teams push players hard to be seen together after a fallout. The joint appearance, the handshake for the cameras, all of it happens because a visible rift is bad for everyone involved.
Cricket dressing rooms have leaned on that same script before. A public apology, a promise that the group has moved on, while the real feeling underneath stays exactly where it was.
None of that makes either man dishonest. It just means the version the public saw for eighteen years was never the whole story.
Harbhajan’s silence now, one indirect post and nothing else, looks less like he has no answer. It looks more like a trained decision. Players who have lived through a big public storm learn that responding while it is hot only keeps it alive longer.
A real fight in the ring is unlikely. What Sreesanth has already got is Harbhajan talking about him again, even if only in proverbs.
Sources:
- The Lallantop, boxing challenge, June 20, 2026 — Gulf News
- Beyond23 Podcast, slap footage release, Aug 29, 2025 — ESPNcricinfo
- 2008 IPL disciplinary action — ESPNcricinfo
- Harbhajan’s Ashwin interview, Aug 29, 2025 — India.com
- “Chaanta Classes” ad critique, Jan 20, 2026 — Manifest Media
- Sreesanth interview, “cut ties” comments, Apr 25, 2026 — Yahoo Sports
- Instagram, empty vessels post, Jun 20, 2026 — CircleOfCricket
- ABP News, auction price claim, Jun 27, 2026 — CricketAddictor
