India’s warm-up game against the Leicestershire CCC caught the attention of cricket fans all over Twitter after Indian batters seemed to follow rules not even present in informal games of gully cricket played across the country. The second Indian innings had gotten off to a good start with KS Bharat and Shubman Gill who tacked on a half-century stand. Shreyas Iyer entered on the fall of the second wicket, ahead of Virat Kohli: he put on 30 runs before being dismissed run-out.
While he was batting, Ravindra Jadeja entered at number 5, and was dismissed for a two-ball duck. Shardul Thakur entered at number 6, and Virat Kohli, having been pushed lower down the order, entered at 7.
The first surprise occurred when Thakur’s wicket fell: out came Cheteshwar Pujara, which wouldn’t have been that odd, save for the fact that for most of the match, Pujara had been playing on the Leicestershire side, including fielding for them in the third innings, alongside Jasprit Bumrah, Rishabh Pant, Prasidh Krishna, and others from the India camp.
Twitter was quick to react, but the strangeness wasn’t at an end: once Pujara, having batted for both teams, was replaced by Ravindra Jadeja, who had already batted. Kohli was dismissed after scoring another half-century, and walked out to see Shreyas Iyer walk back in. It was something which even cricbuzz.com could account for: Iyer was dismissed again, this time for 32, the ninth wicket of India’s innings, but on the scoring website it was registered only as the seventh wicket.
{{/usCountry}}Twitter was quick to react, but the strangeness wasn’t at an end: once Pujara, having batted for both teams, was replaced by Ravindra Jadeja, who had already batted. Kohli was dismissed after scoring another half-century, and walked out to see Shreyas Iyer walk back in. It was something which even cricbuzz.com could account for: Iyer was dismissed again, this time for 32, the ninth wicket of India’s innings, but on the scoring website it was registered only as the seventh wicket.
{{/usCountry}}Twitter was quick to react to the strangeness of the entire situation, and to see the humour of the scene.
Earlier, following the end of Day 3, the BCCI informed India skipper Rohit Sharma tested positive for Covid-19 in a Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) and placed in isolation. The Test match is scheduled to begin from July 1 in Birmingham and if Rohit remains in six-day isolation, either pacer Jasprit Bumrah or wicket-keeper batter Rishabh Pant could be asked to lead the team.