Former India cricketer and head coach Ravi Shastri hit back at England bowling coach Tim Southee, who had accused Men in Blue skipper Shubman Gill of double standards following the 25-year-old's heated on-field exchange with England openers Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett.
Things got spicy in the final over of Day 3
During the final over of the third day of Lord's Test, temperatures boiled over after Crawley pulled away four times before facing the third delivery of the first over from Jasprit Bumrah. Following this act, Gill had a heated on-field argument with the England batter and accused him of time-wasting. The drama wouldn't end there as the fourth delivery of Bumrah's over ended up hitting Crawley on the glove and the physio was called in. This once again lead to Gill & Co. once again having verbal exchanges with both of England's openers.
The day would come to an end after the conclusion of the first over as the hosts managed to not lose any wickets. Following the end of day's play, England bowling coach Tim Southee called out Gill for hypocrisy, pointing out how the Indian captain had also received treatment on the field during the second day.
"It's always exciting to see both sides animated towards the end. I'm not sure what they were complaining about when Shubman Gill was lying down getting a massage in the middle of the day yesterday. It's obviously part of the game when you're near the end of the day. It's an exciting way to finish the day," Southee said after the end iof day's play.
However, Shastri didn't take Southee's comments kindly and stated that he would have done the same thing that Gill did if he was a player in the Indian team.
“If I were wearing the Indian hat, I would have done all that. We call that tamasha. All that is allowed and you want all that. You can't just have 'Good morning...good evening' and go home. A little bit of argy-bargy is okay as long as you don't cross the line,” Shastri said on Sky Cricket.
Meanwhile, a century from KL Rahul and gritty half-centuries from Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja got India to 387 runs, the same exact total that England had got in their first innings. Chris Woakes was the top performer for the hosts in the bowling department, recording figures of 3/84. Both Jofra Archer and Ben Stokes also contributed well by picking up two scalps each while both Brydon Carse and Shoaib Bashir also chipped in with a wicket each.