Indian Head Coach Gautam Gambhir and Oval’s Chief pitch curator Lee Fortis were seen in a verbal spat on Tuesday. The Indian batting coach, Sitanshu Kotak, speaking in the press conference later, confirmed that the Indians were not having any spikes on their shoes, which could damage the pitch. Former Indian cricketer Irfan Pathan supported Gambhir on the issue.
“When Gautam Gambhir went to look at the pitch, he wore shoes without spikes. That does not cause any damage. That is okay according to the rules. But the curator of The Oval has had a way of being rude with many captains and coaches of overseas teams. This is not the first incident,” Pathan said on his YouTube channel.
“But it is on in the media of making Gambhir a villain. This is going on for long. The curator telling him to go away from pitch is not acceptable. I will not accept this. How will you plan without seeing the pitch? It is a controversy for nothing,” Irfan added.
Gambhir’s angry exchange with Fortis and his “you don’t tell us what we need to do” comment that was caught on camera and went viral.
“When we went to see the pitch, we were asked by someone to keep a 2.5-metre distance. This was surprising. The Test would be in a few days and we were wearing joggers. So it felt a bit odd. We all have been on the ground enough, we have played so much cricket. Curators are possessive about the ground and the square but they need to understand that they are speaking to highly skilled and intelligent people,” Kotak explained.
“If you see, no bowler is wearing spikes .. we also know the ground shouldn’t be damaged. End of the day, it’s a cricket pitch … it’s not an antique that is 200 years old and can be broken. Today, we were wearing shoes with rubber soles and in a day’s time, a batsman will be sliding to survive a run-out or a bowler will be sliding there to stop the ball,” Kotak added.
