Follow UsThe Oval was witness to one of the rarest sights in cricket as Joe Root lost his cool and was involved in a heated altercation which had to be diffused by the on-field umpires.
Root, who entered the Oval Test with back-to-back centuries under his belt, walked in to bat at 129/2 in the 22nd over, with Prasidh Krishna having got the better of Zak Crawley.
Root faced five consecutive dots off Prasidh, and after the fifth dot, which was a pearler that went past the bat, the bowler had some words to say to the right-hander. This irked Root, who immediately expressed his displeasure.
But things kicked off after the final delivery of the over, which was hit to the boundary wide of the gully. As Root walked past Prasidh, the pair exchanged words. The interaction was extremely heated, to the point where the on-field umpires had to intervene and break it up. The officials then spoke with both players and asked them to take it easy.
The battle carried on in the next over as well. There were no words exchanged, but Prasidh gave Root a cheeky grin after beating his bat.