ENG vs IND: Virat Kohli unhappy with Haseeb Hameed taking the guard far away from his crease

The Indian skipper Virat Kohli is known to be expressive and if he doesn’t agree with something on the field, he makes sure to make the concerned person aware of it. Something similar happened late on the opening day of the ongoing fourth Test at The Oval. The Indian skipper was already pumped as the team needed early wickets after yet another poor show by the batsmen.

England’s openers Rory Burns and Haseeb Hameed would’ve hoped to give their team a good start. However, the problems began when the latter started taking his guard. He first took his guard like every batsman does and then, also took a similar guard far away from the crease repeatedly making a mark there with his shoes.

According to the laws, a batsman cannot take the guard 5 feet away from his crease as then when he/she plays a front foot shot, it inevitably disturbs the protected part of the pitch. Even Rishabh Pant was told to change his stance during the previous Test for the same reason.

Virat Kohli complains to the umpire

Virat Kohli wasn’t going to watch it calmly and he went to the on-field umpires about Hameed’s guard far away from the crease. He argued about pitch being tinkered with and was also involved in a discussion with the officials. However, that didn’t go on for long as Jasprit Bumrah dismissed Haseeb for a 12-ball duck to leave England struggling at 6/2.

Here’s the video of Kohli complaining to umpires and Hameed taking guard:

pic.twitter.com/IvuflMLNvq

— Tweets of Bhogle (@TweetsOfBhogle) September 2, 2021

As far as the Test match is concerned, it hangs right in balance at the moment after India’s pacers bowled superbly in the 17 overs they got. After Bumrah’s twin strikes, Dawid Malan and in-form Joe Root added 46 runs quickly threatening to take the game away quickly. But Umesh Yadav delivered a peach in the penultimate over of the day to nip out the prized scalp of Root to help India storm back into the game.

England ended the day at 53/3 and the opening session on Day two will be extremely important and might even decide the fate of the series.