Kanpur (PTI): After the relative lull in the first two matches, the third India-Pakistan ODI saw some sparks flying in the Green Park Stadium with Gautam Gambhir and Shahid Afridi being the main protagonists.
It all started with a mid-pitch collision with both the players holding each other responsible for the run-in.
Gambhir straight drove Shahid Afridi for a boundary after which the duo were seen engaged in a war of words. As could be made out from reading their lips, expletives were exchanges between the batsman and the bowler. Gambhir took a single to change ends but there was no let up in the verbal duel.
In fact it got worse as a furious Gambhir headed straight to Afridi to give him a piece of his mind, resulting in a eyeball-to-eyeball encounter, which was eventually snapped by umpire Ian Gould's intervention.
Gould took Gambhir aside and told him to control his emotion, while Afridi too was told to mind his business by the umpire at the end of the over.
Incidentally, Gambhir also had a brief altercation with Sohail Tanvir who made a gesture at the left-hander after a fluffed shot.
In the post-match press conference, both the captains, however, sought to play down the incident.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni said people should not read much into it and added, "I think people love to see little aggression of this kind in one day cricket, isn't it?"
His counterpart Shoaib Malik too sought to put a lid on the incident.
"I think at times, aggression spills out. After the incident, I said sorry to Gambhir but these incidents do take place. There was nothing serious about it."
Interestingly, though Shoaib Akhtar's volatile temperament makes him am unpredictable customer in the middle, the 'Rawalpindi Express' was away from the action. The only time he seemed upset was when Sourav Ganguly delayed taking guard, insisting on the right position of the sight-screen.
After his barren first spell of four overs, Shoaib in fact looked out of breath and needed inhaler. Later on, he seemed to have picked up a left foot injury and came off the field to get it treated. Fawad Alam substituted him in the field.
Shoaib took off his boots and got some massages done as well before eventually returning to the field to claim his lone wicket in Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who dragged a slower onto his stumps to be out on 49.
Source : hindu.com
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