'Worst Ever, Abuse Hurled at My Wife': Tabraiz Shamsi Pays Heavy Price for Dismissing Suryakumar Yadav

Suryakumar Yadav, India’s captain for South Africa T20Is, was cruising along in Gqeberha until Tabraiz Shamsi took him down on 56. In a bit to smash the 4^th maximum of his innings, the 32-year-old holed to Marco Jansen at the long off fence. It was a prized wicket for Shamsi and he celebrated the moment with his trademark ‘Shoe-phone’ act.

Usually, the fans have liked Shami’s unique celebration but doing it against Suryakumar led to social media trolling and abuse from the fans.

“People took it in a negative way; they thought it was disrespectful,” Shamsi told Cricbuzz.

“I had so much abuse hurled at me. It was probably the worst it’s ever been. There was also abuse hurled at my wife. I didn’t appreciate that. It’s uncalled for. It’s fine if you want to have a dig at the players, but to involve family and say nasty things, that pushes it to another level,” he added.

Shamsi later issued a strong-worded clarification following the second T20I, saying that he never wanted to disrespect his opponent.

“Taking to his social media a day after the match, Shamsi wrote a strong-worded statement. “It’s just a fun celebration which a lot of kids enjoy and means no disrespect towards the batter… I’ve mentioned that countless times before. All you guys hurling abuse are just giving other genuine cricket-loving fans from your country a bad name.. cheers,” he posted on X.

However, the post led to more online abuse from the netizens. In the aftermath of the episode, Shamsi said more cricketers should take a stand against the troll who stoop down to abusing.

“I feel that if players don’t say anything about it, then people think they have free license. More people need to speak up and say it’s not OK. Yes, we’re all trying our best. Yes, your team might not win or you might not agree with certain things. But you need to behave like a human being. You can’t carry on like an animal,” he said.