Virat Kohli was seen arguing with umpire Nitin Menon in the closing stages of Day 3 of the second Test match against England when Joe Root survived an LBW decision due to Umpire's Call.
Akshar Patel bowled a quicker one to the England captain in the final over of the third day's play. Root stayed on the back foot and was late to bring his bat down in time.
The ball hit the back leg and the Indians went up in appeal. After Menon refused to give Root out, India took the review with just a second left on the DRS timer.
The replays showed that Root was stuck in front of the off-stump but the spin vision displayed 'Umpire's Call' on impact, thus giving the batsman a life.
Kohli was visibly unhappy with the call and had an argument with on-field umpire Nitin Menon. This did not go down well with the experts on BBC's Test Match Special.
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Former England captain Michael Vaughan was unhappy with the Indian skipper intimidating Menon despite being such a powerhouse in world cricket.
Vaughan said, "You can’t have this, I’m sorry. Kohli is such a powerhouse, you can’t have him intimidating the umpire. It’s a stinker of a decision but you can’t be doing that as a captain."
Another former England captain Nasser Hussain questioned India on why they took the whole 15 seconds to review the decision if they knew that Joe Root was struck in front of the stumps.
Hussain joined in saying, "It was odd that the India team and their captain took the full 15 seconds to work out whether to review or not. They weren’t actually sure what they were reviewing for. If they were so certain that it was out and should have been given straight away, why did it take them so long?"
"Kohli pushes the line with umpires and officials. Joe Root went up and asked in a very smiley sort of way about a review earlier in the game, but Kohli is a lot more animated when he speaks to them — which doesn’t look good," he added.
David Lloyd, who has played close to 700 games of competitive cricket, was also worried that Kohli arguing with the umpire on-field doesn't look good.
"He cannot be speaking to umpires like that and inciting the crowd. He should be setting a much better example. Someone in his camp should be having a word and the match referee should be very interested. It’s calculated and it’s not a good look," Lloyd quipped.
Here is the video of the incident:
Virat kohli angry on umpire#INDvsENG pic.twitter.com/kToF4QBg8x
— Ashish Yadav (@ashishcricket24) February 15, 2021
(With inputs from Indian Express)
