Two days before the start of the crucial fifth and final Test against England, India head coach Gautam Gambhir was involved in a heated exchange of words with The Oval’s pitch curator Lee Fortis during the visitors’ optional training session on Tuesday.
After reaching London on Monday, the Shubman Gill-led side, trailing 1-2 in the five-match Test series for the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, was scheduled to have its first practice session at The Oval on Tuesday. However, head coach Gautam Gambhir was reportedly unhappy with the facilities provided to the visiting side, which led to him venting out.
The tiff started when Fortis told Gambhir: “I will have to report this,” to which the Indian responded rather tersely: “You go and report whatever you want to report.”
The exchange quickly escalated as Gambhir was seen repeatedly pointing fingers at the ground staff and shouting, “You can’t tell us what to do. You are just one of the groundsmen, nothing beyond”. India’s batting coach Sintanshu Kotak’s timely intervention doused the fire, as he stepped in to pull Fortis away. Despite that, Gambhir continued the argument from a distance.
Later, speaking to reporters, Fortis termed Gambhir a ‘touchy guy’, but stopped short of revealing the details of their conversation.
“You saw what he was like this morning. He’s a bit touchy. There’s no side of the story. You’ll have to ask him that,” Fortis said.
“I’m okay. We’ve got nothing to hide here,” the curator added, even though it seemed that Gambhir wasn’t happy with the practice pitch conditions.
Following Kotak’s intervention, both Gambhir and Fortis got back to their respective jobs with the head coach returning to supervise the net session.
The visitors will head to The Oval Test on the back of a fabulous comeback to draw the fourth match in Manchester.
At the practice session, Sai Sudharsan, who registered his maiden Test half-century in the first innings before falling for a duck in the second innings of the Manchester Test, was the first one to arrive at the venue, where left-arm wrist spinner Kuldeep Yadav was also seen putting in some hard yards.
Left-arm pacer Arshdeep Singh, too, was seen bowling under the watchful eyes of Morne Morkel. There are high chances of the Punjab pacer making his much-awaited Test debut at The Oval, after being benched for the first three, and an injury keeping him out of selection for the Manchester game.