Arshdeep Singh's Shaheen Afridi-like celebration in IPL 2023 starts Twitter war between India and Pakistan fans

Arshdeep Singh's Shaheen Afridi-like celebrations in IPL 2023 sparked a Twitter war between cricket fans of India and Pakistan.

Arshdeep Singh had quite an eventful night in the Punjab Kings' opening match of IPL 2023 against the Kolkata Knight Riders. His celebrations were as much in the news as his bowling. The PBKS pacer struck on first ball by getting rid of KKR opener Mandeep Singh with a well-directed bouncer. Mandeep played the pull shot but couldn't quite control it and was holed out in the deep mid-wicket region. Arshdeep spread his both arms like wings and did half a sprint to celebrate the wicket.

Arshdeep Singh and Shaheen Shah Afridi

His second wicket came off the last ball of the same over. It was another back-of-a-length delivery and KKR pinch-hitter Anukul Roy was hurried onto his shot. He could not get any timing on it and was out caught at mid-wicket. Unlike the previous wicket, there was no smile on Arshdeep's face. In fact, he gave a death stare to Anukul as the left-hander was walking back to the pavilion. It was probably because of the attacking shots that Anukul tried - he even got off the mark with a lofted shot over mid-on - against him in his brief stay in the middle.

He saved his best celebration for the last. Brought on to bowl the 16th over when the game was still in the balance, Arshdeep got the all-important wicket of Venkatesh Iyer, who was looking dangerous. It was another short-pitched delivery that got big on Iyer and he was caught in the deep. Arshdeep stood there, kissed his fingers together and spread his arms in the air. The celebration had uncanny similarities with Pakistan speedster Shaheen Shah Afridi. Notably, former India pacer Zaheer Khan had also celebrated wickets in the same manner in the past.

Arshdeep's Shaheen-like celebrations sparked a Twitter war between cricket fans of India and Pakistan.

Here are some of the Twitter reactions to Arshdeep's Shaheen-like celebration

As far as the match was concerned, Sri Lanka's Bhanuka Rajapaksa smashed 50 to set up a seven-run win for Punjab Kings. Arshdeep led the bowling charge with three wickets to restrict two-time champions Kolkata to 146-7 in 16 overs when rain stopped play and Punjab won by the DLS method.

Rajapaksa set the tone for the team's domination with skipper Shikhar Dhawan, who made 40, in an 86-run second-wicket stand before the Sri Lankan big-hitter departed.

Curran, a left-handed all-rounder who became the most expensive IPL player when Punjab paid $2.23 million in the December auction, proved his worth with a 17-ball blitz including two sixes.

A nearly 30-minute floodlight failure delayed the start of the Kolkata innings, which was soon hurt by a double strike in one over by Arshdeep.

Afghanistan's Rahmanullah Gurbaz and skipper Nitish Rana also departed before Venkatesh Iyer and Andre Russell, who hit 35, attempted to take charge of the chase in a 50-run stand.

But Curran took down the big-hitting Russell with his left-arm pace and Arshdeep got his third when he sent back Iyer for 34 to derail the chase.

The 16th edition of the money-spinning league, which began in 2008 and has risen to become the world's richest cricket tournament, runs till May 28 with 74 matches.