Vinod Kambli 'abuses' Sidhu and Shoaib Akhtar on Twitter, blames 'friend'

Former Indian cricketer Vinod Kambli is no stranger to controversy and he sparked another row after a series of tweets from his official Twitter handle targeted cricketers-turned-commentators Rameez Raja, Shoaib Akhtar and Navjot Singh Sidhu as well as anchor Gaurav Kapoor for their IPL commentary.

While the abusive tweets were sent out on Tuesday night after Kambli came on the micro blogging site on Wednesday and apologised. He also blamed his friend for the offensive tweets. Kambli clarified that his friend was a Mumbai Indians fan and was upset by the franchise's poor outing against Rajasthan on Tuesday, for the posts.

Mumbai Indians recorded their third loss on the trot in IPL 8 on Tuesday night. The Rohit Sharma-led team lost by seven wickets to Rajasthan Royals at Sardar Patel Stadium in Motera.

Kambli, who played 17 Tests and finished with 1084 runs at an average of 54.20, was getting trolled for the tweets.

The 43-year-old who also appeared in 104 ODIs sounded frustrated and angry after getting trolled and ended up challenging the people who were "after his blood".

This is not the first instance of a cricketer blaming another person for abusive tweets. Indian all-rounder Suresh Raina had blamed his nephew for attacking the Pakistan team after they were beaten by Sri Lanka by 16 runs in the ICC World T20 semi-final in Colombo in 2012.

The tweet which read, "Ek do din late gaye ghar !!!! Woh bhi besharam ki tarah Gaye... Bye bye Pakistan!!!!" kicked off a storm of controversy. The cricketer later deleted the tweet.

He put the blame on his nephew for the entire fiasco as well as stating that as a cricketer he would never disrespect another team.

He tweeted, "Smart phones r dangerous. Discovered it last night after my nephew posted random tweets. I'm a sportsman and would never disrespect."

This topic became a rage on Twitter to the extent that even an account named @raina_nephew was created, thus taking a dig at the all-rounder.

Here are the tweets, which Kambli has deleted after claiming that they were the handiwork of his 'friend'

Garavh n rameez n sidhu going mad. Sidhu Teri bak bak chup karo...

Siddhu sirf saayri mein busy hai.comments koun karegaa mera baap .himmat hai toh siddhu ko bolo mera sammna kare.iski toh kar donga mein

Pakistani ko har channel mein lekar aatey ho.aarey unse kaho unke channel mein Humko gaali dete hai.Hai hai Pakistan.zindabad Hindustan

Abhey mein rameez or sohaib se naaraz nahin ho aapne joh Uun Pakistani koh aapnaye hai joh Humko gaali dekar humsien he Paisa lete hai