×

IND vs ENG: Darren Gough Blames Virat Kohli & Co For Shopping Before 5th Test

Gough blamed the Indians for breaking the COVID protocol after the Oval Test.

It has been over a week now that the 5th Test match between India and England was called off due to the COVID outbreak in the visiting team. British media and former England players have heavily criticised the Indian team and now former pacer Darren Gough becomes the latest inclusion. Gough blamed the Indians for breaking the COVID protocol after the Oval Test as Virat Kohli and co pounced on public transport, went for shopping and also attended the book launching event of India head coach Ravi Shastri.

“I didn’t see it coming. Not at all. I get the bubble life, I get the mental health and I get all that 100 percent, but what after the Oval Test? They broke the protocol, went to the book launch. They all jumped on public transport from London to Manchester. Few of them went out shopping before the Test match,” Gough told Brendon Julian and Glenn McGrath on Fox Cricket.

Ravi Shastri was the first one to test positive with the virus and later on other members of the staff followed. The Manchester Test came to a halt and was called off two hours prior to the game as assistant physio Yogesh Parmar’s report came out positive, while the all the Indian players had tested negative a day before.

BCCI and ECB are working alongside each other to come up with a solution regarding the rescheduling of the 5th Test and Jay Shah have confirmed that they are ready to offer two extra T20s in India’s next tour to England in the upcoming year to compensate on the loss suffered by the English Board in the cancelled Test match. The offer will stand if ECB amicably agrees to play the rescheduled match as a continuation of the series instead of a one-off encounter.

“What annoyed me about it was to cancel a Test match when people had already gone to watch the game. It was out of order. We all know what it was about. The IPL is a great tournament. Same as the other tournaments around the world like the PSL and Big Bash. The talk about bubble life and being stuck in once place and one time – they’ve got to divide out. They are doing 6-7 days of quarantine and then they are in the bubble life of the IPL for another 4 weeks. Then they’ve got the World Cup and then New Zealand come in . So I just think it was a case of getting out of there. They wanted to play the IPL from the very start. I have no problem with that but it’s the fans that for me are the ones again who get done,” Gough added.

trending this week