Former India opener turned commentator Virender Sehwag has faced backlash from fans after his comments on reminding Virat Kohli and Gautam Gambhir that they are icons. As the chaos between Kohli and Gambhir happened on Monday, Sehwag said that the duo who are ‘icons’ should not set a bad precedent for kids with such behaviour as well, but the same lines came back to him as people referred to him for hypocrisy in view of him appearing in an endorsement for an Indian tobacco brand as well.

Virender Sehwag said: “I always say one thing, that these guys are icons of the country. If they do or say anything, millions of kids follow them and probably think ‘If my icon has done this, I would too’. When you’re on the ground, these things don’t look nice. My own kids can lip-read and they very well understand Ben Stokes. So that is when I feel bad. If you’re saying such things, if my kids can read it, others can too and tomorrow they will think that if they (Kohli and Gambhir) can say it, so can I”.

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Here are some of the reactions:

Virender Sehwag on Cricbuzz (on the Kohli-Gambhir spat): "These are the icons of our country. If icons say or do something, lakhs of kids follow them. They think if my icon has done so, it must be right."

Also, @virendersehwag: pic.twitter.com/qyqWS0mgWl

— Zucker Doctor (@DoctorLFC) May 3, 2023

The word that excludes Sehwag from this is “icon”. Kohli is an icon…

— UN_EASH (@Uneash) May 3, 2023

@virendersehwag is soooo right: kids follow what their icons do. So why advertise for pan masala? https://t.co/0lUygDl80k

— Donald D'Souza (@donaldsvd) May 5, 2023

By this logic, Sehwag is definitely not an ‘Icon’

Shayad Bacche IPL nahi dekh rahe TV pe aur isliye Kamla Pasand ka ad dekh kar prabhavit nahi honge aur nahi Lagta ki yeh galat hai

Bhaad mein jaaye fans #IPL2023 #LSGvRCB https://t.co/MpO7kChNv0

— Varun Ramaswamy (@varunramaswamy) May 3, 2023

Sehwag:- हमारे बच्चे देखते है मैच , उनको वेन स्टोक्स का मतलब समझ आता है, तो हमारे आइकॉन को कुछ ऐसा नहीं करना चाहिए ।लोग फॉलो करते है आइकॉन को, वो वही सीखेंगे जो उसका आइकॉन करता है ।
And
And
And
Same shewag doing ads for pan masala..https://t.co/Ywgade8VbD#ViratKohli #PBKSvMI

— Prabhash Karna (@KarnaPrabhash) May 3, 2023

Notably, Virender Sehwag and Sunil Gavaskar appeared in an endorsement for ‘Kamla Pasand’ last week – which also aired during an IPL 2023 match – that left people in utter surprise as well.

Meanwhile, former India player Sunil Gavaskar had said: “My point, do something which will make sure, these things don’t happen again. If it has to you know, like it happened with Harbhajan and Sreesanth 10 years ago, that you have to ask them to maybe step aside for a couple of matches. Make sure you do something that ensures that these things don’t happen and also something that will hurt the team. That’s a stiff one.”