Aakash Chopra Questions England's Double Standards, Sam Billing Responds

Former India cricketer Aakash Chopra took a sly dig at the England cricketers and questioned their double standards for staying quiet after Australian batter Matthew attempted to obstruct the field in a recent T20I fixture between the two sides.

Many of the England cricketers and pundits had lambasted India women’s team and Deepti Sharma, in particular, after the all-rounder ‘Mankaded’ England batter Charlie Dean. Deepti ran Dean out when she stepped out of the non-striker’s crease even before the ball was delivered. The dismissal handed India a historic win in England.

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Although it was a legal dismissal, India’s integrity and the ‘Spirit of Cricket’ was questioned by some English cricket fans and present players. They rushed in to condemn and criticize the Harmanpreet Kaur-led side for their ‘tainted’ way of winning.

However, the tables have now turned albeit of a recent incident in the first T20I match of England’s tour of Australia. In the sixteenth over of the Aussie innings, Wade top-edged a vicious short ball from pacer Mark Wood that dashed into his helmet and looped into the air.

Wood sensed the opportunity and dashed toward the batter’s end to catch the ball. Nonetheless, he was stopped from reaching the ball by Wade, who blocked the pacer by shoving his arm out as he sought to regain his footing. It was quite evident that Wade had impeded Wood from taking the catch but surprisingly England skipper Jos Buttler refrained from appealing against Wade for ‘obstructing the field’.

Cricket commentator and expert Aakash Chopra was quick to react to the incident and took a dig at England cricketers over their silence on Wade’s hideous act and seemingly mocked them for their double standards. “Are our English friends (the custodians of the Spirit of the Game) quiet on this?" Chopra wrote asked on Twitter.

England wicket-keeper batter Sam Billings responded to Chopra’s tweet with a reference to the Deepti-Dean incident. “Nope. Quite evident, but after all the hate I’d received earlier, I didn’t want to tweet again," Billings responded.

Billings was vociferous in his criticism of India’s Deepti Sharma after the run-out incident. In a Twitter thread, Billings slammed Team India and Deepti for not abiding by the “spirit of cricket".

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