England Coach Slams 'Strange' Akash Deep For Duckett Send-Off: 'Many Would Elbow'
England assistant coach has slammed Akash Deep's 'strange' send-off to Ben Duckett, saying many in county cricket would have 'dug an elbow' into the Indian pacer.
England assistant coach Marcus Trescothick didn't take Akash Deep's send-off to Ben Duckett kindly, calling it 'strange' and one where 'many good people' would have reacted by 'digging an elbow' into the bowler.
Akash and Duckett were having a ton of too-and-fro at the Oval during the fifth Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy Test, carrying on from their needle in previous games. Duckett was heard telling Akash that he couldn't get him out and proceeding to hit him for brilliant, audacious scoops over the wicketkeeper.
But Akash eventually got him out, making him glove one scoop to Dhruv Jurel. As Duckett was walking back, the Indian pacer put his arm around the English opener. It looked innocuous on the field — though Duckett didn't seem happy at all — but some felt it was extraordinary.
'Strange, really. I don't think you really need to be putting your arm around someone, but nothing was really said, was it?" Trescothick said in the press conference after the day's play. 'You just don't really see it. We were chatting on the balcony there and I know many good people playing in county cricket would have said something or dug the elbow in, or something like that," he added.
Duckett's wicket was huge in the context of the game. He and Zak Crawley had put up a 92-run stand and were taking the game away from India rapidly when Akash struck. England eventually collapsed to 247, managing just a 23-run lead over the visitors. India responded with a score of 75/2 at Stumps.
It wasn't the only controversial incident of the day. Trescothick also spoke about Prasidh Krishna and Joe Root's heated argument later in the same innings. While the Indian pacer was criticised for riling up a usually calm Root, he clarified that he had only bantered him by saying that Root 'looked in good shape'.
'He [Prasidh] obviously tried to get after him [Root] and spark him up a little bit," Trescothick remarked. 'Maybe they have seen him play so well over the last couple of games that India tried a different approach, and Joe bit back, as sometimes he does. Normally, he is the sort of guy who just laughs and giggles and allows things to happen, but today he just chose a different route. Everyone has their own method of dealing with that sort of approach, and today Joe bit back."
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