Former England cricketer and now a prominent voice of the game, David Lloyd has hit out at the two on-field umpires of first England- India Test at Trent Bridge, Nottingham. Lloyd considered Richard Kettleborough and Michael Gough as not being tough enough on Indian batsmen. He has said that it was not the umpires who were calling the shots, rather Indian batsmen KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant were taking decisions on their own.
Lloyd was referring to the stoppage of play late on the third day of the first Test between India and England when Rahul and Pant were reluctant to bat under what he calls “squally showers” which were not to last long.
He said that James Anderson did something out of his role on the field by intervening and asking the Indian batsmen to stop from going off the ground.
"Who is running this game? The umpires or the players? We had a squally shower come over Trent Bridge that clearly wasn’t going to last long but India refused to bat. Michael Gough was just letting them walk off until Jimmy Anderson intervened and they carried on. It’s not his job! The umpires need to be much, much firm," Lloyd wrote in the Daily Mail.
Lloyd has had some strong words for the Indian team in the recent past. Earlier, during England’s tour of India, he had criticised Indian team management for the quality of pitches used in that series.
India were in pursuit of 209 runs to win the first game of the series and they finished the fourth day at 52/1 after Joe Root and Jasprit Bumrah’s brilliant performances kept the game in the balance.