The England openers sparked some aggression from Indian skipper Shubman Gill and many other Indian players just before stumps on Day 3. This was after the England pair seemed to deliberately waste time so that they could avoid playing more overs. Shubman and Zak Crawley had a heated exchange of words. The Indian skipper also suggested to have an impact player sent instead of Zak who was using tactics to waste time. Shubman told Ben Duckett to ‘grow some f****** balls’.
After the end of day’s play, KL Rahul said, “We wanted to bowl two overs. There were six minutes left. It is a no-brainer that any team will bowl two overs with six minutes to go, but it was a bit of theatrics at the end.”
He added, “We know how difficult it is for a batter to come to bat for two overs when you've been in the field all day. A wicket at the end of the day's play would've been perfect for us. Tomorrow, even without that, I think we would've been fired up anyway.”
The aggression seems legit in the context of the match which is evenly poised. England and India both ended up scoring 387 runs each in their first innings. The final two days will be very interesting to watch as all three results are possible with both teams at 1-1 in the series.
Earlier in the day, KL Rahul scored a brilliant 100. Rishabh Pant made 74 and Ravindra Jadeja made 72. For England, Chris Wokes was the top wicket taker with 3 wickets.
