Sunil Gavaskar suggested that jealousy over Indian cricketers’ IPL salaries could be fueling verbal clashes between English and Indian players.
India secured a dominant 4-1 victory over England in the five-match Test series, culminating in a resounding win by an innings and 64 runs in the final Test in Dharamsala. While the series witnessed minimal verbal spats, tensions escalated in the last match when Shubman Gill and James Anderson engaged in a heated exchange.
The incident also saw Jonny Bairstow joining in later, confronting Gill after the latter questioned Anderson’s abilities.
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Former Indian cricketer Sunil Gavaskar offered insights into the frequent confrontations between English and Indian players, attributing them to potential envy over Indian cricketers’ lucrative IPL contracts.
“That is also the reason why the England and Indian players get into verbal skirmishes so often when they are playing against each other. Not a lot of England players are picked in the IPL, mainly because they can be withdrawn by their Board anytime for a preparation camp or something, which leaves the franchises in a lurch,” Gavaskar wrote in his column for The Sportstar.
“Some of them can’t stomach the fees for which some of the Indian players are bought and compare their achievements at the international level when the IPL auction dynamics can be so volatile and hard to explain or even understand. So you see more lip in the India-England encounters than in any other India match. That’s why the pleasure of beating England is always greater,” he added.
England’s series defeat against India dropped them to eighth place in the World Test Championship standings. Meanwhile, India leads the table with six wins out of nine matches.
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Last Updated on March 13, 2024
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