India captain Shubman Gill in the pre-match press conference has said it was “absolutely unnecessary” for Lee Fortis, the Surrey head groundsman, to prevent the visitors from having a look at The Oval pitch from close quarters during their training session on Tuesday.
India captain Shubman Gill did not hold back in expressing his dismay at the Surrey chief curator, Lee Fortis, not allowing the Indian team to inspect the Oval pitch from close quarters. Shubman Gill said he had never been instructed to stay 2.5 metres away from the main pitch before the match.
India captain Shubman Gill said that he fails to understand why the pitch curator at the Oval had a problem with them taking a look at the wicket from close quarters, an incident which eventually led to head coach Gautam Gambhir having a verbal altercation with the latter. Clips of Gambhir’s angry exchange with Lee Fortis went viral on Tuesday and Shubman Gill said that India were never given any instructions about how to approach the pitch that were outside of what is general practice.
The Fortis- Gambhir altercation on Oval ground
Video footage circulating on social media showed Gambhir confronting Fortis during India’s training session on Tuesday. In the footage, Gambhir, a former India opener with 58 Tests to his name, can be seen gesturing angrily and heard telling Fortis:
“You can’t tell us what to do” and “You don’t tell any of us what to do.” He then added,
“You’re just the groundsman, nothing beyond,” in remarks that have drawn sharp criticism online.
Surrey’s head groundsman, Fortis, visibly taken aback by the comments, responded by suggesting he might file an official complaint. Gambhir was unmoved, replying:
“You can go and report to whoever you want.”
India batting coach Sitanshu Kotak, who intervened in the spat, later explained that the confrontation began when Fortis raised his voice at a member of India’s support staff.
“He was sitting on the roller, he shouted and told the support staff not to take [the cooler] there,” Kotak said.
“It is good to be a little possessive and it is also good to be protective, but not that much.”
Kotak defended Gambhir’s reaction, stating,
“Gautam just said do not talk to the support staff like this. At the end of the day it is a cricket pitch. It is not an antique where you can’t touch.”
The incident comes at a tense moment in what has become an increasingly fractious series. England leads the five-match series 2-1, with the final Test beginning Thursday. Tempers had already started to fray during the third Test at Lord’s, where a time-wasting controversy involving England openers Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett sparked criticism from the Indian camp.
The fourth Test ended on a sour note as well, after Indian players Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar pursued personal milestones instead of accepting an early draw handshake offered by England captain Ben Stokes. Now ahead of the 5th Test at the Oval , Indian skipper Shubman Gill came in full support of his coach in the pre-press confernce providing updates and his views on the issue.
Shubman Gill backs Gautam Gambhir’s actions with Oval Curator
India captain Shubman Gill has commented on head coach Gautam Gambhir’s spat with the pitch curator at the oval. Gambhir got involved in a heated altercation with pitch curator Lee Fortis after he was denied to have a close look at the pitch. Indian batting Sitanshu Kotak also shared the details of the incident and revealed that the tone in which Fortis yelled at the Indian support staff made Gambhir annoyed.
Shubman Gill has also given his take on the controversy and revealed that there was no such instructions for them to stay 2.5 metres behind the wicket. He asserted that one is allowed to go near the pitch while being barefoot or wearing rubber spikes.
“As far as I remember, there’s no such instruction (on staying 2.5 metres behind). As long as you’re wearing rubber spikes or you’re barefoot, I think you’re allowed to look at the wicket closely.
I don’t know exactly what happened yesterday in terms of why their curator stopped them, but we’ve played four matches there before and no one has ever stopped us. We’ve all played a lot of cricket and have looked at wickets many times—whether it’s the coach or the captain—so I don’t know what all that fuss was about,” said Shubman Gill in the pre-match press conference.
Furthermore, Shubman Gill called the moment unnecessary reiterating that the captain and the coach have every right to look at the wicket closely.
“What happened yesterday, I thought is just absolutely unnecessary. If a pitch curator is going to come and ask us to not look at the wicket and look at the wicket from 3 m from behind, that’s not something, that has happened to us before. It’s not the first time that we were having a look at the wicket. Like I said, a coach and the captain has every right to be able to go close quarters and have a look at the wicket. And I didn’t think that there was anything wrong with that,” he added.
Things have once again heated up in the series after India denied Ben Stokes’ offer to draw the fourth Test early and the Gambhir incident has only added fuel to the fire. It remains to be seen how these incidents will fire up the team to put up a remarkable performance in the fifth Test set to begin from July 31 at the Oval.
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