Shubman Gill defended Indian coach Gautam Gambhir after a heated disagreement with pitch curator Lee Fortis at The Oval on Tuesday, July 29, after a training session. Fortis was not pleased with the Indian team management inspecting the ground ahead of the fifth and final Test against England, which begins on Thursday, July 31.
The Surrey head groundsman asked India to stand 2.5 metres away from the pitch while assessing it. An enraged Gambhir was seen pointing a finger at Fortis and told him that he is “just a groundsman”.
“What happened yesterday, I thought was completely needless. We have been looking at the wicket for about two months. A coach has every right to go close quarters and inspect the wicket, and I saw nothing wrong with it. “I don’t understand why the curator wouldn’t let us go look at the wicket,” Gill remarked in the pre-match press conference.
Gill remembered that no other curator at the series’ prior venues – Headingley, Edgbaston, Lord’s, and Old Trafford – had restricted India’s view of the pitch or square.
“As far as I remember, we had never received any orders. The wicket is visible from a distance if you are wearing rubber spikes or barefoot. We’ve already played four matches in this series, and nobody has stopped us from watching the game. “I don’t know what the fuss was about because we’ve all played so much cricket and been to the pitches so many times, including the coaches and captain,” Gill added.
When a team is trailing in a series, players and managers can quickly lose their cool. Gill was asked if Gambhir’s passionate reaction was because he was 1-2 down in the five-match series and under pressure. However, the Punjab batsman refuted this.
“Not really.” If a pitch curator comes and tells us not to stare at the wicket and instead look at it from three metres away, we have never experienced this before. We’ve been playing cricket for a long time, and as long as you’re wearing rubber spikes or barefoot, you can stare at the wicket from a close distance. “That’s the responsibility of the coach and captain,” Gill said.
Shubman Gill outlines the relationship with the England team.
During the first four Test matches, the Indian players had some heated disagreements with their English counterparts. In the most recent match, England captain Ben Stokes was furious after Ravindra Jadeja refused a handshake and continued batting until he and Washington Sundar reached centuries.
Despite the several heated exchanges, Gill said that the relationship between the two teams is fantastic and it’s just that they don’t give each other an inch when they are on the field.
“The relation is fantastic, but when you are on the field, you are trying to win a game at the end of the day, and both the teams have been very competitive and sometimes when you are competitive in the heat of the moment, you do or say things that you might not do,” he said. “But once the match is over, there is mutual respect between both teams,” Gill said.
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