Sunil Gavaskar has questioned this method of EnglandImage Credit Source: Getty Images
England captain Ben Stokes would hardly have thought that even without veterans like Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, the Indian batsmen will make his team so much upset. That too in his house. But after Leeds and Birmingham, the same was seen continuously in Lord's Test. In the Lord's Test too, Indian batsmen craved England for wickets, after which Ben Stokes adopted a special strategy. But the legendary batsman Sunil Gavaskar did not like this strategy and he has demanded a change, calling it against cricket.
On the third day of the third match of the Test series at Lord's, Team India completed their first innings. The Indian team was all out for 387 runs in the last session of the day. But before this, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja yearned England for one wicket each. Especially Rahul and Pant's partnership gave Team India a great start on the third day. The effect of this was that England captain Stokes adopted a method for the wicket, which has rarely shown.
In fact, the England captain deployed more and more fielders in the leg side to get the wicket of Rishabh Pant. The condition was that about 7-8 fielders from deep fine leg to long on were posted at different positions. After this, Stokes and the rest of his fast bowlers started attacking Pant with short pitch bowling. Many bouncers were tried, so that Pant play pull shots and lose their wickets. This strategy of England did not succeed but it was criticized.
Especially at that time, former Indian captain Gavaskar, who was doing English commentary, looked very unhappy with this. He questioned this and said that it cannot be called cricket. The legendary commentator clearly said that it is against cricket and there should be no more than 6 fielders in the leg side at one time. He gave the example of his era, when many bouncers could be put in an over, which took advantage of the West Indies bowlers and injured many batsmen.
Gavaskar said that at that time, by curbing the bouncer, it was limited to just 2 in an over. He said that similarly ICC should also change the playing conditions and not allow more than 6 fielders. Along with this, he also appealed to former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly to pay attention to it. Ganguly is the chairman of the ICC Cricket Committee. This committee suggests a change or amendment in rules from playing conditions in international cricket.
