Prasidh Krishna sought to downplay his verbal exchange with Joe Root on the second day of The Oval Test. Not one to react to sledges usually, Root shot off an angry response when Prasidh tried to chirp with him during the second session of play. However, the India fast bowler brushed off the incident as banter but conceded that he was surprised Root took the bait.
England’s batting stalwart walked out to the crease with the team in a strong position at 129/2 in response to India’s 224. But India’s fast bowlers began to find a bit of momentum through that early part of the session and Prasidh, in particular, struck early to dismiss half-centurion Zak Crawley. When he then beat Root with a delivery in the same over that shaped away after drawing the batter forward, Prasidh had words to say on his followthrough.
The very next ball, Root guided a boundary past gully and even offered a verbal reaction to Prasidh’s action from before. At the change of overs, umpire Kumar Dharmasena intervened and had a long chat with Prasidh, with even KL Rahul jumping in the bowlers’ defence.
“I don’t know why Rooty [reacted],” he told the BBC’s Test Match Special. “I just said, ‘You’re looking in great shape,’ and then it turned into a lot of abuse and all of that,” The 29-year-old fast bowler said.
At the press conference a little later, Prasidh said it had been a strategy of his to try and get Root off his game but there was nothing antagonistic about the exchange to add to the other sparks that have been lit through the series. “That was the plan, but I didn’t expect the couple of words I said to get such a big reaction from him,” he said.
“That’s just who I am when I’m bowling, when I’m enjoying. If it means that I have a bit of a chatter with the batter… and it does help me when I can get under the nerves of the batsman and get a reaction from them. But I love the guy that he is. He is a legend of the game and I think it is great when two people are out there wanting to do the best and be a winner at a given moment.”
England’s assistant coach Marcus Trescothick too didn’t make much of the incident or Prasidh’s plan to knock the star batter off his game. “I think they made a comment, didn’t they?” Trescothick said after the day’s play. “He [Prasidh] obviously tried to get after him [Root] and spark him up a little bit. Maybe they have seen him play so well over the last couple of games that India tried a different approach, and Joe bit back, as sometimes he does.
“Normally, he is the sort of guy who just laughs and giggles and allows things to happen, but today he just chose a different route. Everyone has their own method of dealing with that sort of approach, and today Joe bit back.”
The second day’s play which ended with India effectively in the lead by 52 runs saw two micro flashpoints, first when Akash Deep put his arm around Ben Duckett after dismissing him. Duckett then was involved in another exchange with Sai Sudharsan right before close of play after a review couldn’t save India’s No. 3 from an LBW dismissal.
Reacting to the former of the two incidents, Trescothick said: “He didn’t really say too much. Strange, really. I don’t think you really need to be putting your arm around someone, but nothing was really said, was it? You just don’t really see it. We were chatting on the balcony there and I know many good people playing in county cricket would have said something or dug the elbow in, or something like that.”
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