AGENCIES
NEW DELHI
Gautam Gambhir and Manoj Tiwary, captains of the Delhi and Bengal teams, were involved in a prolonged heated exchange during the third day's play of the Ranji Trophy match at Feroz Shah Kotla in Delhi. The umpire, K Srinath, had to intervene, and the match referee, Valmik Buch, has called for a hearing. In a statement issued after the hearing, Gambhir said Buch conceded he had seen video evidence of Tiwary pushing Delhi seamer Pradeep Sangwan.*
The incident happened in the seventh over of Bengal's second innings, when Tiwary came out to bat at the fall of the second wicket, that of Parthasarathi Bhattacharjee to the left-arm spin of Manan Sharma. Delhi had fallen behind by 108 runs in the first innings, and were looking to bowl Bengal out a second time around for a shot at an outright win.
Tiwary came out wearing a cap, but even before he faced a delivery - probably realising a pace bowler was bowling from the other end - he called for a helmet. Delhi probably saw this as an act of wasting time by Bengal to hold on to their three first-innings lead points. There were words exchanged, which soon gave way to aggressive gestures between Gambhir, fielding at first slip, and Tiwary.
Srinath had to separate the two. Buch called in the two team managers, Manoj Kapoor of Delhi and Sameer Dasgupta of Bengal, and the two captains. Gambhir's statement accused Tiwary of wasting time. "My team-mates urged Manoj to refrain from wasting time," Gambhir said. "Instead of getting on with his batting he started abusing some of Delhi players. At which point I came in and told him what I thought about his demeanour. The umpires did a wonderful job of calming the situation by intervening right there. And the matter ended.
"I attended match referee's hearing post the day's play where he accepted that he doesn't have any video evidence of me pushing the umpire. On the contrary the match referee conceded he had video evidence where Manoj is seen pushing Pradeep Sangwan. I am not complaining here but stating what the honourable match referee told me."
