The first verbal banter between the India and England players has now taken a head start. The Engish fast bowler David Willey has alleged that the Indian cricketers didn’t play the first T20I within the spirit of the game as he pointed out the instances of Indian bowlers repeatedly pulling out of their delivery strides during the game at Old Trafford on Tuesday.
Willey was particularly annoyed by the way fast bowler Bhuvneshwar Kumar stopped in his delivery stride during the last over of the English innings. Earlier in the innings, even Kuldeep Yadav had resorted to similar tactics while bowling to England opener Jos Buttler.
Talking to the reporters ahead of the second T20I in Cardiff, David said, “I’m guessing, but I think he (Bhuvneshwar) was looking to see what I was going to do. They did that a few times. The spinners did it a couple of times. I’m not sure what the rules are on that. I don’t particularly like it. I don’t think it is necessary for the spirit of cricket. It’s not my job to comment on that too much on what they should or shouldn’t be doing. Personally, I don’t think I’d do that.”
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Talking about the on-field banter with Kumar, Willey added, “They have a few fiery characters and that is part and parcel of cricket. I don’t mind a bit of confrontation. I have had my fair share of it in the past. If it comes my way I am quite happy to get involved.”
On the other hand, India batsman KL Rahul, who scored a magnificent century in the match, came out in defense of his teammates. In his opinion, such practices should be allowed in T20Is.
During the pre-match press-conference, Rahul said, “It will frustrate me as a batsman, it did I guess frustrate the English batsmen but the margin for error for bowlers in T20 cricket is very little so whatever tactics they can come up with and whatever they try to do to upset the batsmen is only fair. You know you can do it as a bowler, you can run a batsman out, he was taking few strides too many and it is a long boundary and if he gets that much start he can keep rotating the strike and keep getting two runs which will frustrate the bowler in return, so it’s only fair.”
