'Got carried away with dressing room atmosphere': Ishant's coach blames Shastri, Kohli

The second session on the fourth day of the final Test between India and Sri Lanka was proving to be one of the most boring phases of play in what was an otherwise gripping Test series. Angelo Mathews had pretty much given up trying to take a wicket and spread the field out as India’s lower order was accumulating runs at will — albeit in no great hurry. It made for some dull cricket.

Little did we know that it was the calm before the Ishant Sharma-Dhammika Prasad storm.

The Sri Lankan pacer peppered Ishant with bouncers and the six-foot-four Indian pacer slapped his helmet repeatedly as if to say try aiming higher. That sparked confrontations between the two sides leading to Dhammika chasing Ishant to the dressing room at the end of the innings.

It didn’t end there. Ishant’s send-offs to Upul Tharanga and Dinesh Chandimal is now part of internet-meme folklore. And the responses have ranged from “Atta boy, Ishant” to “What on earth was he thinking?”.

Ishant’s coach Shravan Kumar is firmly on the latter side. Speaking to Mid-Day, Kumar felt that Ishant has “crossed the limit” of what can be allowed on the field and went ahead to suggest it was because of Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri’s presence.

“Sledging is a part of the game, but by making gestures he invited more trouble from the match referee. I think he got carried away with the dressing room atmosphere, especially when you have a captain and Team Director who talk so much about aggression,” Kumar was quoted as saying by Mid-Day .

“I will definitely ask him to control his aggression. By now, he must have realised that he is the one who suffered in this incident. The team management hasn’t come forward to request the match referee to remove his ban. Ishant needs to be counselled, and learn the art of sledging, which is a very subtle act,” Kumar added.

Ishant has since been handed a one-Test ban by the ICC, with the match referee saying these kind of incidents are bad advertisements for Test cricket. Bishen Singh Bedi, never one to shy away from expressing an opinion, has also been critical.

“See, they talked about aggression and then Ishant gets banned for a match. Is this what you want on a cricket field? This is a pathetic display of aggression. And remember this has nothing to do with Virat’s aggression, who is just giving statement after statement, and trying to sell his aggression through words,” said Bedi, a man not known to mince his words.

But like Kohli stated after the match, that spell proved to be the turning point. “An angry fast bowler is a captain’s delight,” said Kohli.

While getting banned is obviously an unnecessary consequence, we are willing to bet fans, for the most part, would have enjoyed that phase of play.