Ahead of the fifth Test against England at The Oval, a video of India head coach Gautam Gambhir having a heated altercation with the head of Surrey ground staff Lee Fortis has taken the internet by storm.

While interacting with the media, India batting coach Sitanshu Kotak on Tuesday (July 30) addressed the controversy, citing that Gambhir took exception at being told to stay 2.5 meters away when he was inspecting the pitch.

Coaches and captains usually take a look at the surface in the days leading up to a Test to fine-tune their plans and team combinations.

In the aftermath of this episode, former all-rounder Irfan Pathan has questioned why an English coach was allowed to stand on the pitch but not an Indian.

“So an English coach can walk onto the pitch to inspect it? but an Indian coach can’t? Are we still stuck in the colonial era?" Pathan wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

In a video shared on his YouTube channel, Pathan offered his perspective on the “unnecessary controversy" which he feels has been created to take the focus away from India’s exceptional performance to eke out a draw in Manchester.

Pathan suggested that Gambhir was wearing shoes with rubber-spikes while inspecting which doesn’t impact the pitch as opposed to steel-spikes.

“This curator has a history of being rude," Pathan said. “There are several instances of him being behaving in such a way with overseas teams’ captains and coaches. This isn’t the first time. The process of Gambhir being villainised has been going on in the media for a long time now."

“We end up laying red carpet for the visiting teams in India. When we go overseas, we follow the rules and it’s something nobody should have a problem with. There’s a photo on Twitter of the same curator standing with Brendon McCullum (England coach) on the same pitch two days before a match. Gambhir also went two days before. How can you then deny him? England’s coach is allowed but not Indian. It feels we are still living in the 1947 era. I cannot accept this (double-standard).

“If you won’t get to inspect the pitch, how will you plan for the game? You have to get a feel of the pitch by touching it – how hard it is, is there moisture in it? You can’t have that by staring from 2.5 meters. This was an unnecessary controversy," he added.

In the pre-match presser, Kotak explained what triggered Gambhir’s outburst. “When we were standing on the wicket looking at it, one of the ground staff came and said to stand two and half metres away from here. In my cricketing career I have never seen anybody saying that," the batting coach said.

“Literally he was saying that ‘you can go outside the rope’ to the head coach and see the wicket. I don’t know how you can see. If someone was brushing their shoes, or somebody is trying to put something on the wicket or somebody wearing spikes – if the curator feels that then fine – but it was a very strange way of saying it.

“Curators are a little over-protective or possessive about the square and the ground. [They] need to understand that the people they are talking to are highly skilled and intelligent people. When you are working with very intelligent and highly skilled people, if you sound a bit arrogant, you can be protective – but at the end of the day it’s a cricket pitch. It’s not an antique that you can’t touch because it’s 200 years old and it can be broken. That’s what I feel," he elaborated.