Indian women’s all-rounder Deepti Sharma was in focus once again at the home of cricket, Lord’s, during the recent second ODI against England women. This time, the controversy featured Tammy Beaumont and an appeal for obstructing the field.

Beaumont clipped the ball to mid-wicket, where Jemimah Rodrigues was positioned, after Deepti Sharma bowled around the off stump in the fifth over of England's run chase.

Quickly responding, Jemimah threw sharply in the direction of the striker. As the ball deflected off Beaumont’s pad, she appeared to already be within her crease, bringing her right leg forward. Richa Ghosh, the wicketkeeper, protested for an obstructing the field dismissal even though the throw missed the stumps.

Immediately, the whole scene reminded fans of something that happened three years ago. It was the farewell game of legend Jhulan Goswami, and at the fag end of the match, Deepti Sharma lawfully ran out Charlie Dean at the non-striker’s end during her bowling stride.

That had led to a huge controversy, as Dean’s run-out, while legal, sparked a ‘spirit of the game’ controversy, but Deepti Sharma was wholly backed by Indian management.

Meanwhile, this time, following a protracted debate between themselves and after speaking with the concerned batter, on-field umpires Rob White and Anna Harris took the call upstairs.

In a huddle, the Indian squad made fun of Deepti, who was the unifying factor in the 2022 runout drama, and this, yet another, uncommon appeal.

India's appeal for obstructing the field was denied by TV umpire Jacqueline Williams, who declared it an inadvertent contact after multiple slow-motion and real-time replays.

Deepti got out of her delivery stride before the fourth delivery. It's a common Deepti Sharma trope in white-ball cricket, as Smriti Mandhana admitted after the match, but non-striker Beaumont mistook it for a soft warning for backing up too much, which she wasn't in this case.

"Not again," said the English opener as Deepti walked back to the top of her bowling mark, alluding to the Dean incident from three years ago.

"Doesn't happen, right, [that] you come to Lords and that question is not asked?" Mandhana said with a coy smile, quoted by Cricbuzz.

“But, yeah, we didn't really think anything about that incident. Only today, when there was one random appeal for Tammy Beaumont [obstructing the field]… and again, Deepti was bowling, that's when we cracked the joke that Lords and Deepti have a—I don't know how to term it in words. But we had a small joke around it; that's it.

The whole match, last time when we won, of course, was overshadowed quite a lot because of that one incident. But I would say the way we all actually played cricket in terms of that whole series. One incident cannot overshadow it. And the chat was only about how good we played, and we have to just keep continuing that," the India vice-captain added.

"I was not at a good angle, to be fair. It was not visible at all. Of course, Richa and Jemi definitely felt that maybe she kicked it or something. But they referred it, and it was [adjudged] not out. I'm sure that they would have seen all the angles. That's the only view I have of it. But I was in no angle, to be fair, to see what happened. At mid-on, you don't see what exactly happened from that way. Not being diplomatic, but genuinely, I did not see it,” Mandhana said about the incident.

The third ODI will be played at Chester-le-Street on July 22.