JOIN USTempers frayed, words were exchanged before taking an ugly turn involving the captains of Delhi and Bengal, Gautam Gambhir and Manoj Tiwary, respectively, on the third day of their Ranji Trophy match at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium here on Saturday.
The ugly incident took place in the eighth over of Bengal’s second innings when Tiwary came out to bat at No 4 after left-arm spinner Manan Sharma dismissed the last batsman Parthasarathi Bhattacharjee.
The Bengal captain arrived wearing a cap. However, before facing a delivery he called for a helmet. Delhi, perhaps, viewed it as a time-wasting tactic by Bengal, who had taken a 108 run first innings lead.
It triggered a heated exchange of words between the two sides and worsened into charged up gestures between Gambhir, who was fielding at first slip, and Tiwary. Umpire K Srinath had to intervene and separate the two players.
Match referee Valmick Buch later called in the two team managers, Manoj Kapoor of Delhi and Sameer Dasgupta of Bengal, and the two captains.
The Delhi camp later downplayed the incident. “I don’t feel anything happened of the kind. I felt the two sides were playing cricket with passion and such things tend to happen when you play with passion.
It was a close game and both the captains are trying to win the match. The umpires handled it beautifully. Rest whatever the umpires and match referee decide, we will respect that and go by it,” Delhi coach Vijay Dahiya told the media.
“I will speak to Gambhir and other players of the team,” he added. Gambhir, who has a history of getting on the wrong side of the code of conduct for players, escaped with a fine of 70 per cent of his match fee, while Tiwary was docked 40 per cent. DDCA vice-president Chetan Chauhan, too, preferred not to look too much into the incident. “I was at the ground but I was busy with the meeting. But from what I heard, such things happen in a match,” he said.
Bengal left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha joined the attempts to dismiss the incident by saying “this has not happened on the cricket field for the first time.” But Tiwary was more vocal about it. He said Gambhir crossed the line.
“Everything is in the video. As a younger player I have got respect for Gambhir for what he has done for the country. But sometimes when someone says something which crosses the line, then it does not feel good. I was not at fault, everyone saw what happened,” said Tiwary.