Our Bureau
London
The ongoing Anderson Tendulkar Trophy has seen its fair share of drama and controversy with both teams battling hard and providing thrilling contests one after the other. Now India’s Head Coach Gautam Gambhir has become a part of another controversy as a video of him has come out in which he can be seen having a verbal spat with the Chief pitch curator at The Oval on Tuesday, July 29th.
Just 2 days ahead of the start of the fifth and final Test, the Indian team was at the ground in a regular training session when suddenly Gambhir was seen in a heated argument with the Chief Pitch curator. He was visibly upset over some comment by the curator and lashed out at Lee Fortis, the chief curator.
It was reported that Fortis was seemingly not very happy with the Indian team practising on a particular pitch. However, this infuriated Gambhir, who was seen pointing his figures towards Fortis and yelling that he shouldn’t be telling the Indian team what to do and reminding him he is just a groundstaff.
“You don’t tell us what to do,” Gambhir could be heard yelling multiple times as he pointed finger towards Fortis. “You can’t tell any of us what to do. You are just a groundstaff,” he added.
Sitanshu Kotak, the batting coach of the Indian team, defended the Head Coach in the press conference stating that it was very strange the way the curator talked to them. He stated that Fortis told them ‘You go and stand 2.5 metres away from here’ which was very strange according to him
Kotak said, “We were standing on the pitch and looking at it, and one of the ground staff came and told us to stand 2.5 metres away from it. In my cricketing career, I’ve never seen anybody saying that. He was literally telling the head coach to go outside the rope (that cordons off the pitch). I don’t know how you can see it (from there). It was very strange the way he said, ‘You go and stand 2.5 metres away from here’. I think that is what started it.”
