Steve Smith and Babar Azam - (Source: X.com)
Things got heated during the Sydney Derby in the BBL on January 16, when Babar Azam and Steve Smith got into an argument. The two meastros opened the innings for Sixers and even stitched a 141-run opening stand to rattle the Thunder.
In the solid opening stand, Steve Smith was the most impressive, slamming a century off just 41 balls. Meanwhile, the controversy erupted after Steve Smith denied a single to Babar Azam to keep the strike in power-surge.
Controversy erupted with Sydney Derby
Notably, on the last ball of the 11th over, Smith denied a single to Babar and eventually slammed 32 runs in the power-surge over.
Babar was unhappy and even had a discussion with Smith after the over. Interestingly, Smith played the entire power surge over, and when Babar came to bat, he lost his wicket. The former Pakistan captain was furious and didn’t even look at his partner. Further, Babar hogged the internet after he lost his cool and slammed the boundary cushion. There were reports that Babar even had a confrontation with Smith in the dressing room.
Notably, after the game, Steve Smith had appeared for interview, where he confirmed that Babar Azam was not happy with him.
“At the 10-over mark, they asked me to take the power surge. I told him to give me one more over I’d take it on the short boundary and go for 30 runs. We got 32 of that. Not sure Babar Azam was happy with me for turning down that single," Smith remarked.
Steve Smith ends rift rumours with Babar Azam
Much to everyone’s surprise, everything is well between the two as Steve Smith has refuted rift rumours on live television. Notably, on Sunday, January 18, the Sydney Sixers locked horns against Brisbane Heat, where Smith had a chat with the presenters before the start of the game. Here is how the conversation went.
Isa Guha: Have you and Babar made up?
Steve Smith: Its good, we were chatting before. He batted nicely, and we had a great partnership. We were talking about golf earlier, and look, he is looking forward to tonight, and hopefully we can have a great start again.
Isa Guha: Have you invited him for a round of golf in New York?
Steve Smith: No, I haven’t yet, but whenever he is in New York, we will go for golf.
Babar Azam and Steve Smith look in good spirits
Several visuals floated on social media where Babar and Steve Smith were shadow practising golf and spent time together, ending the rift rumours. Notably, several reports claimed that Babar felt disrespected, and it was a tense situation in the dressing room. Therefore, it was assumed that the tremors of the rift would be felt during the ongoing BBL match, but nothing of that sort happened.
Talking about the ongoing match, a cute moment happened between Babar Azam and Steve Smith, where the latter dropped a catch, and Babar rushed to cheer his Sydney opening partner. Further, at the time of writing this article, Heat are struggling and have put 81/4 after 13 overs.
