In cricket and under normal circumstances, when a wicket falls, the bowler celebrates with his fellow team-mates while the batsman walks back to their respective dressing room. There's no interaction between the bowler and the fallen batsman. That wasn't the case when Indian fast bowler, Akash Deep, dismissed England opener, Ben Duckett. This action has caused some outrage among pundits.
Cricket sledge - verbal abuse or insults directed at the opposing team, specifically the batsmen, by fielders, with the aim of unsettling them and potentially affecting their performance.
England's assistant coach, Marcus Trescothick, reflected on Ben Duckett and Indian pacer, Akash Deep's friendly banter during the first session of day two of the fifth and final Test at The Oval on Friday. Trescothick said it's better for a batsman to put his head down and walk off after getting out, adding that there was probably no need to walk Duckett off in the manner Akash Deep did. During the first session, Duckett tried getting under Akash Deep's skin, saying, "You cannot get me out in here." In response, although Akash didn't say anything, Duckett hit him with a reversed ramp shot to the delight of the English crowd.
However, Akash Deep soon turned the tables, bowling Duckett out caught behind by wicketkeeper-batter, Dhruv Jurel, for 43 runs off 38 balls; which included five fours and two sixes. During the celebration, he pumped his fist in front of Duckett, then wrapped his hand around his shoulder, smiling and exchanging a few words with the opener.
"I was just saying, many in my time, a lot of players, would have just dropped the elbow on him. I don't think I've ever seen a bowler do that after getting someone out. You see, he obviously has many words, and we've seen it within the series on both sides, but it was just different. You put your head down and walk off. Your job is done at that point. There's probably no need to sort of walk him off in that fashion," Trescothick told the media.
They also seemed to briefly exchange a few words in those seconds before KL 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.
On-air commentators, Mike Atherton and Dinesh Karthik, both seemed to not really approve Deep’s behaviour. "Given Duckett a bit of a send off which is probably unneccessary but it is the wicket that India desperately wanted," said Atherton.
Dinesh Karthik lauded Duckett to remain calm and not making too many big gestures. “Not sure if this is the right way to send off a batter especially after you’ve got him out. Not many batsmen would behave the way Ben Duckett,” he said. Karthik later opined that it was almost like the pair knew each other really well and were having a friendly chat.
After the Duckett incident, Joe Root and Prasidh Krishna got into a lengthy battle. The pair could be seen saying visibly unfriendly things to each other as Root crossed Krishna while taking a run. There was also a long steely stare shared between the two in Krishna’s next over after the pacer. The umpires ended up having a word with Krishna as well.
India captain, Shubman Gill, had said before the match that the relations between India and English players, many of whom have played in the IPL together on multiple occassions, haven’t been affected by the spice of the series. "The relation is fantastic, but when you are on the field, you are trying to win a game at the end of the day, and both the teams have been very competitive and sometimes when you are competitive in the heat of the moment, you do or say things that you might not do [otherwise]," he said. "But once the match is over, there is mutual respect between both teams."
"I can think of a few batsmen down the years that would take umbrage at this, and I'm looking very much in your direction. That would have been a Ponting right hook, wouldn't it?" sports presenter, Ian Ward, asked Ricky Ponting on Sky Sports during the Lunch break on Day 2. "Probably yeah, probably," replied the former Australia captain.
Ponting went on to laud Duckett for handling the incident calmly. "Although I mean, when I saw it, I just thought they must have been mates or played against each other somewhere or together. I would like to have something like that. I mean, you don't see that every day, maybe in a local park game or not in a test match that's been played as fiercely as this series has been played. I love the way that Ben Duckett plays his cricket. I think I like him more now to not to be able to react to that," Ponting added.
Speaking on Sony Sports Network’s Hindi show, Ravindra Jadeja didn’t hold back his words in his reaction to Akash’s action. "When it was happening, I couldn’t understand what he could be sledging about at this point. The situation was that on a seaming wicket, in 10 overs it was 94 runs, you have gone for 40 in 5 overs," said a furious Jadeja. "Even the wicket you’ve taken, you haven’t taken it, he’s dismissed himself."
Jadeja’s criticism stemmed from the fact that Akash was just happy to celebrate the wicket without realising the fact that India were well behind in the game at that point, only having scored 224 in the first innings. "I’ve gotten the wicket, that’s why I will celebrate. How I got it, why I got it, when I got it, if I should have gotten it, not gotten it, what I did, that has no thought," he said.
While Jadeja wasn’t happy with Akash’s actions, former India bowler, Ashish Nehra, had a more forgiving view of the situation, trying to provide a bowler’s perspective on the matter. "A fine for showing love?" joked Nehra. "Sitting here we don’t know if there was some consistent back-and-forth with them across the series that caused Akash Deep to do this."
"This is not even really a send-off,” added Nehra. "In fact the captain should say to the bowler all these things Ajay has mentioned. He should be the one getting angry with the game situation."
Ultimately, when asked about what the response to the situation should be, Nehra argued there shouldn’t be any escalation of it: "I don’t think he should be fined."
I don't support the action. Deep should've just left Duckett alone. There's no need for some extra attention. As of this writing, he hasn't been punished - and he's lucky. As displayed above, an action like this brings out the wrong type of attention. There's zero need for opposition players to interact in the manner that was done.