“It was against the spirit of the game” - Shubman Gill reveals the reason behind his on-field confrontation with Zak Crawley at Lord’s

Indian Test captain Shubman Gill has finally opened up and cleared the air on his on-field confrontation with the England opening batter Zak Crawley on the third day of the Lord’s Test, which England won by 22 runs to lead the series 2-1 with two more games to go.

Speaking at the pre-match press conference, Gill stated that the English openers were 90 seconds late to the crease, which he felt was against the spirit of the game. While India were given seven minutes of play before stumps on Day 3, they managed to bowl only one over, courtesy of Crawley’s time-wasting tactics.

Interestingly, a lot of former cricketers, including Manoj Tiwary and Sanjay Manjrekar, felt that the Indian skipper went overboard with his on-field antics, which changed the game towards the hosts. However, Gill decided to clear the air once and for all.

"Yes, a lot of people have been talking about it, so let me just clear the air once and for all. The English batters on that day, they had 7 minutes of play left. They were 90 seconds late to come to the crease, not 10, not 20, 90 seconds late. Yes, most of the teams, they use this, even if we were in a position, we would have also liked to play lesser overs, but there's a manner to do it,” Gill said at the pre-match press conference.

"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 later on the crease is not, that is not something that I would think comes in the spirit of the game," he added.

Gill said that it wasn't something that happened out of nowhere and a lot of things that shouldn't have happened occurred during the match. The Indian captain said he wasn't proud of what happened, but claimed that there was a lead-up and build-up and the reaction didn't come out of the blue.

Furthermore, Gill asserted that he wasn’t proud of what he did at Lord’s, adding that he had no intention of doing what he did. Additionally, he stated that when they are playing for a win, there will be a lot of emotions that will be involved.

"And just leading up to that event. A lot of things that we thought should not have happened had happened. I wouldn't say it was something that I'm very proud of, but, there was a lead-up and build-up to that. It didn't just come out of nowhere and we had no intention of doing that whatsoever. But you're playing a game, you're playing to win, and there are a lot of emotions involved, and when you see there are things happening that should not happen, sometimes the emotions come out of nowhere," Gill concluded.

England and India will take on each other at Old Trafford in Manchester on Wednesday, July 23.

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