Legendary India cricketer Farokh Engineer was “surprised” to find out that the unseen footage of Harbhajan Singh slapping S Sreesanth after an Indian Premier League match between Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) in 2008 in Mohali. While Harbhajan was representing Mumbai Indians Sreesanth played for Kings XI Punjab. Engineer was the match referee for that particular match.

Since then, the IPL grew in stature to become the toughest and richest franchise T20 league in the world. At the same time, both the players involved and their respective families have moved on from the incident over the years. In fact, Harbhajan has time and again apologised to Sreesanth and his family for that incident.

Seventeen years later, the unseen footage of the incident went viral after former IPL boss Lalit Modi shared the clip at Beyond23 Cricket Podcast with ex-Australian captain Michael Clarke recently. “I’m surprised that the footage has emerged after all these years. As match referee for that particular match, I maintained confidentiality throughout and didn’t speak about the contents of the incident even to the best of my friends in the media,” Engineer told Mid-Day.

“I had a job to do as match referee and I believe I did it (well) with dignified silence. It’s a thing of the past and I’m sure both players have long buried their differences. Like many other things in cricket, it was done in the heat of the moment. Harbhajan is a good friend. We move on,” added the former India wicketkeeper.

How did Farokh Engineer punish Harbhajan Singh?

Following the incident, Engineer left no stone unturned in punishing Harbhajan. The then Mumbai Indians cricketer was banned for 11 matches and was subsequently ruled out of the tournament that season. Harbhajan was also handed a five-match ODI suspension by the BCCI. Meanwhile, Harbhajan too broke his silence on the release of the video and slammed Modi for any “selfish motive”.

“Humans make mistakes, and I made one too. I have requested Lord Ganesh to forgive me if I make a mistake again. But the way the video has been leaked, it’s wrong. It shouldn’t have happened. They might have a selfish motive behind it,” said the former India cricketer.