Former Australia skipper Ricky Ponting said that even if Shubman Gill’s aggressive on-field confrontations were a little out of character, it was a ‘captain standing up for his team’. A lot has been said about the flare ups during the Lord’s Test with Gill’s bust up with England opener Zak Crawley at the end of Day 3’s play grabbing most of the headlines.
“That was a little out of character from what I’ve known from Shubman in the past. I am sure everyone that was there watching it and I know you would know him quite well, that’s not what he’s generally like,” Ponting told ‘The ICC Review’.
“That’s the captain standing up for his team, that’s a captain really wanting to show that it’s his team now and this is the way that we’re going to play the game, and also, I guess, wanting to give a little bit back,” he added.
Ponting also felt that Gill acted in a manner similar to former captain Virat Kohli.
“I think that’s him starting to put his stamp on his team. And a lot like Virat (Kohli) did, similar ways like that. Rohit (Sharma) probably was never as outwardly aggressive, I guess, especially to opposition players. I know he (Rohit) would quite often get aggressive with his teammates and try to bring the best out of them that way. But I love watching Shubman stand up for what he thought was right in the game last week,” he said.
On Tuesday, Gill cleared the air on what went down at Lord’s on Day 3, saying that the England batters were 90 seconds late in coming to the crease which he felt was going against the spirit of the game.
“Yes, a lot of people have been talking about it, so let me just clear the air, for once and for all, the English batsmen on that day, they had seven minutes of play left, they were 90 seconds late to come to the crease, not 10, not 20, 90 seconds late,” said Gill ahead of the 4th Test in Manchester.
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“Yes, most of the teams they use this (delaying tactic), even if we were in a position, we would have also liked to play lesser overs, but there is a manner to do it, and we felt, yes if you get hit on your body, the physios are allowed to come on, and that is something that is fair. But to be able to come 90 seconds late on the crease, is not something that I would think, comes in the way of spirit of the game,” he added.
