Former India opener Gautam Gambhir found himself in the middle of a controversy when a purported video of him making an obscene gesture towards a group of fans went viral on social media on Monday. Gambhir, who is on commentary assignment for the ongoing Asia Cup in Sri Lanka, defended himself saying that those in the stands were chanting anti-India slogans.

However, in the clip that has gone viral on various social media platforms, fans can be heard chanting the name of an India cricketer when he allegedly made the gesture. Reacting to his gesture, Gambhir, a BJP Member of Parliament, claimed that the clip did not reveal the actual truth.

“What is shown on social media has no truth in it because people show whatever they want to show. The truth about the video that went viral is that if you raise anti-India slogans and speak about Kashmir, the person before you will obviously react and not smile and leave. There were 2-3 Pakistanis there who were speaking anti-India things and things on Kashmir. So, it was my natural reaction. I can’t hear anything against my country. So, that was my reaction,” Gambhir said while speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the rain-curtailed India-Nepal game.

The World Cup-winning opening batter also put out a tweet on the issue, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. Not everything is as it seems. Any Indian would react how I did to the kind of slogans used against our nation. I love our players; I love my country.”

A couple of days ago, Gambhir had expressed his disappointment over players displaying too much camaraderie with rival players in the middle of games. He made the comments during the India-Pakistan match and blamed franchise cricket for the game losing a bit of aggression these days. Interestingly, Gambhir had been a part of numerous Indian Premier League teams earlier as player and now as a coach.

“When you play on the field for your national team, you must leave the friendship outside the boundary ropes. Game face hona zaroori hai. Dosti bahaar rehni chahiye. (You must have your game face on. Leave friendship outside.) There has to be aggression in the eyes of both sets of players. You can be as friendly as you want after those six or seven hours of cricket. Those hours are very important, because you’re not just representing yourself, you’re representing a nation of over a billion,” Gambhir had said in a mid-innings show on Star Sports.

“These days you see players of rival teams patting each other on the back and exchanging fist bumps during a match. You would never see that a few years ago. Aap friendly match nahi khel rahe ho (you are not playing a friendly match),” he had said.