Spirit of cricket? Not quite

Photojournalists and the Indian cricket team have always had a love-hate relationship but things became a bit explosive before the start of the Nagpur ODI, reports Manoj Patil.

Photojournalists and the Indian cricket team have always had a love-hate relationship but things became a bit explosive before the start of the Nagpur ODI.

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All cricket stadiums allot specific vantage points for photographers to set up their elaborate equipment in order to capture on-field action.

On Thursday, before the match began, a few players chose to warm up right in front of the space allotted to the picture men.

Ordinarily that would not matter except that one of the balls smacked by Amit Mishra knocked down a laptop.

Thereupon the players were requested to go through their moves some distance away; after all they had the whole ground at their disposal. That did not go down too well with two players in particular – Virat Kohli and Praveen Kumar.

They chose to make their displeasure quite clear through a heated exchange and aggressive gestures. Not just a gentleman’s game anymore, is it?