The Indian skipper Virat Kohli was furious after an on-field call of ‘out’ from Marais Erasmus was overturned on DRS as the hawkeye showed that the ball would have been going just over the stumps when South African skipper Dean Elgar was adjudged LBW in the last 30 minutes of third day’s play at Newlands, Cape Town on Thursday by Ravichandran Ashwin.
Kohli let out his frustration and had a few nasty things to say on the stump mic. The likes of KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, and Ravichandran Ashwin also joined their skipper in criticizing the broadcasters, Supersport on the stump mic.
KL Rahul was heard saying, “It’s us 11 versus the whole country while Mayank Agarwal chirped, “Do the broadcasters make money out of this?”. Ravichandran Ashwin, on whose bowling the decision was overturned, said, “You got to find better ways to win Supersport”.
Kohli, meanwhile, was heard chirping – “Certainly conducting a fair game here DRS”
However, India’s bowling coach Paras Mhambrey played down his team’s reaction and feels everything happened in the heat of the moment as we do react in a certain manner in such kind of situations. Mhambrey added that it will make sense if we move on and not take this episode any further.
When asked whether the remarks made during the end of day’s play were serious, Mhambrey told the press: “No, I don’t think so. See, every individual out here is trying his best, and sometimes in a moment like this people do say certain things… It’s a game. I think it’s fair if we just move on and let’s not take it further. It just happens. [When] everyone is trying their best, emotions do come into play sometimes but let’s sit back and think how we are going to go about tomorrow.”
“We saw it, you saw it. I’ll leave that to the match referee to have a look at it. There’s nothing else that I can do or can comment on there. We’ve seen it all, just want to move on with the game now.”
Kohli is well known for his energy and passion on the field and it rubs on to other players.
“He’s quite lively, that’s the way he likes to play his cricket and that rubs onto the others. And that’s what you want from a captain, right? You want the energy, you want everyone out there getting involved. I am happy to see that really.”
On the other hand, Virat Kohli once again showed all the patience as he scored 29 runs after facing 143 balls and added a valuable knock of 94 runs with Rishabh Pant.
