India speedster Prasidh Krishna opened up on his verbal exchange with veteran England batter Joe Root on the second day of The Oval Test. Not only react to sledges usually, Root gave an angry response when Prasidh tried to chirp with him during the second session as well. However, the Indian speedster brushed off the incident as banter but conceded that he was surprised Root reacted that way.
“I don’t know why Rooty [reacted],” he told the BBC’s Test Match Special. “I just said, ‘You’re looking in great shape,’ and then it turned into a lot of abuse and all of that,” The fast bowler said at the press conference. “That was the plan, but I didn’t expect the couple of words I said to get such a big reaction from him,” he said.
“That’s just who I am when I’m bowling, when I’m enjoying. If it means that I have a bit of a chatter with the batter… and it does help me when I can get under the nerves of the batsman and get a reaction from them. But I love the guy that he is. He is a legend of the game and I think it is great when two people are out there wanting to do the best and be a winner at a given moment,” he further added.
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Meanwhile, England’s assistant coach Marcus Trescothick too didn’t comment a lot of the incident or Prasidh Krishna’s plan to knock Joe Root as well.
“I think they made a comment, didn’t they?” Trescothick said after the day’s play. “He [Prasidh] obviously tried to get after him [Root] and spark him up a little bit. Maybe they have seen him play so well over the last couple of games that India tried a different approach, and Joe bit back, as sometimes he does. Normally, he is the sort of guy who just laughs and giggles and allows things to happen, but today he just chose a different route. Everyone has their own method of dealing with that sort of approach, and today Joe bit back.”
“He didn’t really say too much. Strange, really. I don’t think you really need to be putting your arm around someone, but nothing was really said, was it? You just don’t really see it. We were chatting on the balcony there and I know many good people playing in county cricket would have said something or dug the elbow in, or something like that,” he stated.
