David Willey Calls Out Indian Bowlers For Going "Against The Spirit Of The Game"

India are to go up against England for the second T20I on July 6, 2018 at Sophia Gardens, Cardiff

England was defeated by 8 wickets in their first T20 match against India on Wednesday at Old Trafford. After the loss, David Willey questioned the tactics used by Indian bowlers (Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Kuldeep Yadav). The duo, Kumar and Yadav, apparently stop right at the end of their delivery strides, which Willey claims is “against the spirit of the game”.

Hales and Butler complained about this tactic to the umpire when Yadav repeated the same for the second time in the 10th over. He said that as Yadav was aborting his delivery in the last moment, he was getting the hint of what shot Buttler was about to play. In the last over of England’s innings, Bhuvneshwar Kumar did the same thing – he aborted his run-up while the batsman was halfway through his shot.

While addressing the media, David Willey said “I think he [Bhuvneshwar] was looking to see what I was going to do. They did that a few times. The spinners did it a couple of times. I’m not sure what the rules are on that. I don’t particularly like it. I don’t think it is necessarily in the spirit of cricket. It’s not my job to comment on that too much on what they should or shouldn’t be doing. Personally, I don’t think I’d do that. I don’t think it is great.”

After Willey’s allegations, KL Rahul (who scored an unbeaten 101 runs in the first T20I against England) came in to defend his teammates by saying that although this “tactic” used by Indian bowlers will frustrate him too, but the margin for error for bowlers in T20 cricket is very little so coming up with these “tactics” are only fair.

Not just KL Rahul, fans also came out in support for the Indian bowlers and even counter-questioned David Willey, asking whether the batsman’s moving in his crease to unsettle the bowler was within the “spirit of game”.

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(Written by Abhijeet Ghumman)

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