Former India cricketer Farokh Engineer, on Sunday, accused England batter Zak Crawley of cheating during the final few minutes of play on Day 3 of the ongoing Lord’s Test match in London against India.
It happened shortly after India matched England’s first-innings total of 387 runs, before the England openers walked out to bat with six minutes left on the clock.
Crawley had pulled away from a delivery from Jasprit Bumrah twice during that one over of action in England’s second innings on Saturday, which left Shubman Gill fuming, as he hurled expletives at the batter, followed by sarcastic claps from fellow Indian players.
Speaking to RevSportz, Engineer accused Crawley of deliberately wasting time. He said: “English people will call it professionalism but I would call it cheating. That was timewasting tactics. They did not want to face another over which was very obvious. He could have been discrete about it but he made it look so obvious. That wasn’t very fair. But who knows? I don’t think our batsmen would have done such a blatant thing. The headline is it’s not cricket.”
The 87-year-old former Lancashire stalwart was also unhappy with how England’s batters played in the first innings, where their uncharacteristic go-slow approach was questioned. On the opening day, they scored under three runs per over, only the second time they recorded this figure in the first 40 overs of an innings since the start of the Bazball era. Incidentally, the last instance also happened at the same venue.
“This Bazball is all bundlebaz, they can do Bazball against Bangladesh or Afghanistan and Sri Lanka,” said Engineer. “Against India, they cannot do that and I have always said that in the past. I wish they had adopted Bazball, we would have won the series by now.”
Sunil Gavaskar blames it on ‘IPL’
The former India captain reckoned the reason behind the clash between the Indian and England players were mostly down to the fact that they do not share the dressing room in the IPL as most English players in the Test side do not participate in the T20 franchise league.
“…England wanting to make it the last over. The Indians thought it was may bit of gamesmanship. Maybe it was,” Sunil Gavaskar said on air after Day 3 ended.
“There is a reason why this happened. That’s because not a lot of England players are competing in the IPL. That’s my thinking. From this England team Joe Root did not play, Ben Stokes did not play. What has happened with other teams is that a lot of their players are in the IPL. They have mixed with the Indian players, travelled with them. They shared changing room. This is what I keep saying, before the IPL, there was lot of animosity, bordering on being brutal, between some players. That intensity is still there, like Archer bowling to Yashasvi. There is lot of confrontation between India and England players because they don’t play in the IPL.”