Ugly scene at Kotla as Gambhir, Tiwary nearly exchange blows

There were ugly scenes at Feroz Shah Kotla ground as rival captains Gautam Gambhir and Manoj Tiwary nearly came to exchanging blows during the Ranji Trophy match between Delhi and Bengal, here on Saturday.

Situation came to such a pass that umpire K Srinath had to come between the two players as Gambhir moved towards Tiwary to hit him and he also came charging at the Delhi skipper. In fact in an unprecedented ugly gesture, Gambhir even pushed umpire Srinath, who was trying to get him out of the way to hit Tiwary.

Touching umpire is a grave offence in cricket, which could invite a ban. The incident happened in 7.1 over when Partha Sarathi Bhattacharjee got out of Manan Sharma’s bowling and Tiwary came in to bat at No. 4 wearing a cap.

Tiwary first took guard and was about to take strike. But he stopped the bowler and signalled at the dressing room to bring his helmet as a pacer was operating from the other end.

Delhi players felt that it was a deliberate time wasting tactic. Manan ticked off Manoj and he told him to lay off. All of a sudden, Gambhir, at first slip, got into the action and started abusing the Bengal skipper, who then retaliated.

Suddenly all hell broke loose as Gambhir said: “Shaam ko mil tujhe maroonga (Meet me in the evening, I will hit you). And Tiwary retorted, saying: “Shaam kya abhi bahar chal (Why wait till evening, let’s go out and settle it now”). Umpire Srinath then sprinted from bowler’s end.