The England cricket team has started playing mind games to unsettle Indian players after all their cricket skills have failed against the Indian team. Before the third Test match, England’s media tried to stir a controversy by accusing Indian captain Virat Kohli of ball tampering. On the first day of the match, Ben Strokes was reprimanded for a verbal duel with Kohli. But that didn’t stop them from playing more tricks. On day 2, England came out with the same frame of mind. And they again tried to play mind games on Indian openers.
England were bowled out on Sunday for 283 runs. They already lost the toss advantage after scoring low in the first innings. Indian openers Murali Vijay and Parthiv Patel came out to bat with a positive frame of mind. But the England team chose to be negative. Vijay played a defensive shot that was fielded by bowler James Anderson. Vijay was standing an inch outside the crease. After a few seconds, Anderson realised that he was standing out of the crease. But he also knew that he was standing in front of the wickets and there was no chance of the ball hitting the wickets. But Anderson still took a shy at the stumps. The ball hit Vijay, who was unmoved, on the pad. Anderson appealed to the umpires to give Vijay out for obstructing fielding.
The decision was sent to the third umpire who found that Vijay was not obstructing field willingly. He was just standing his ground. He didn’t even move an inch after playing his shot. The incident clearly showed England’s frustration.
India won the second Test match and are leading the 5-match series 1-0. Even in this Test, India are in a commanding position and as they got England out cheaply. It was a collective bowling effort as every Indian bowler took wickets. While Mohammed Shami took 3 wickets, Jayant Yadav took 2 wickets. Ravindra Jadeja and Umesh Yadav took 2 wickets each.
