When former South Africa skipper Dean Elgar walked back after his last Test innings, Virat Kohli was among the Indian stars to walk up to him and offer a shake hand. The image of the Indian batter hugging Elgar was used by many media the following day.
Now, only weeks after retirement, the former South Africa skipper is in the news again over his comments on Kohli. Elgar has claimed that star India batter "spat at him" during a Test match and apologised two years later. And in the centre of the story is South Africa great AB de Villiers -- a much-adored cricketer in the subcontinent and a known friend of Virat.
Here is what you need to know about the incident.
Why is Dean Elgar in the news now?
Elgar attended the podcast 'Banter with The Boys' alongside former South African all-rounder Chris Morris and rugby player Jean de Villiers, news agency PTI said.
During the podcast, the South African batter said that he had bitter on-field episodes with India's Ravichandran Ashwin and Virat Kohli. According to the PTI report, Elgar stopped short of mentioning the series in which the incident took place. However, it is speculated that he was talking about South Africa's tour of India in 2015.
What did Elgar say about Virat Kohli?
"And I came into bat and I was actually like holding my own against Ashwin and what's his name Jajeja ja-ja-jajeja, ('Jadeja', said someone in the background) and Kohli, he like spat at me," Elgar said.
"I said to him, 'if you do that, I'll f*****g *** you with this bat'," Elgar claimed.
The host went ahead and asked Elgar if Kohli understood what he said. "Yes, I said 'if you do that, I'll absolutely knock you out'," Elgar claimed.
What is AB de Villiers's role in the episode?
According to Elgar Proteas icon AB de Villiers had a role to play in the incident. When he came to know about the incident, De Villiers, a good friend of Kohli's, confronted him. Kohli and ABD are good friends as they played many seasons together for IPL side Royal Challengers Bangalore.
However, Elgar did not specify when exactly de Villiers discussed the incident with Kohli.
"Anyway, so, realised that de Villiers found out what he did and went up to him and said 'bud, why are you spitting at my teammate bud? That's not on' and two years later, he (Kohli) calls me aside playing (in) South Africa and said 'can we go have a drink at the end of the series?"
"'I want to just apologise for my actions'. Two years later in South Africa, he says he wants to apologise for what he did. We had a drink, (the) punchline is we drank till 3 am in the morning. This is when he used to drink, now he is obviously converted a bit," Elgar added.
