KL Rahul may have landed himself in trouble for his heated verbal exchange with umpire Kumar Dharamasena during a rather feisty Day 2 of the fifth Test between India and England at the Oval. Sparks had been flying between the two sides throughout the England innings, with Rahul himself pulling Akash Deep away from Ben Duckett earlier in the day before himself getting into an argument with Dharmasena during the second session.
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The incident occured in the 22nd over of the English first innings. Prasidh had dismissed Zak Crawley first ball of the over and was then chirping at Root for the rest of it. Root guided the last ball past gully for a four after which Prasidh said something again. This time, Root retaliated.
Dharmasena then had a long chat with Prasidh and India captain Shubman Gill and Rahul seemed to walk in right at the end of it. “What, do you want us to be quiet?” Rahul asked Dharmasena. The Sri Lankan umpire tried to reason with him: “Will you like any bowler come and talk to you like that? No, you can’t do that. No Rahul, we should not go that way.”
“What do you want us to do? Just bat and ball and go home?” said Rahul in reply, which Dharmasena didn’t really appreciate. “We’ll discuss that at the end of the match. You can’t talk like that,” he said.
It had been a busy day for the two umpires during the England innings with the Indians turning up the heat on the batters particularly after the second session. Deep earlier raised eyebrows with his sendoff for Ben Duckett. He had scored 43 in 38 balls in rampaging 92-run opening stand with Crawley that came in just 12.5 overs before being caught behind off Deep.
The Indian pacer punched the air in celebration before putting his arm around the Duckett’s shoulder and walking a few steps with him. They also seemed to briefly exchange a few words in those seconds before Rahul pulled Deep away. Umpire Ahsan Raza also had a word with Deep after that. It was the last ball of the over and Shardul Thakur could be seen having a chat with Deep while he was fielding at the boundary the next over.
