5 Most Controversial Test cricket moments/series

3. Australia vs India, 2020

India and Australia rivalry is not new; it dates way, way back. Even the ongoing Indian tour down under has had its fair share of controversy. This was India’s first Test series post-COVID and having defeated Australia in 2018, everyone expected India to put up a fight this time as well.

Controversies struck the series even before it had started as Ricky Ponting, the former Australian captain and Michael Vaughan tweeted that India had no chance at winning the series as Virat Kohli was leaving after the first game. The nightmare came alive when India were all out for 36 in the second innings of the first Test match. The second match brought with itself a lot of pressure. Virat was home, Mohammed Shami was injured, yet India managed to fight back and defeated Australia by 8 wickets.

Before the start of the 3rd Test match, controversy struck as Indian players Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, Prithvi Shaw and Navdeep Saini broke the bio-bubble and went out to have a meal at the restaurant. A fan tweeted that he saw the players, paid their bill and hugged Pant.

Sore from the defeat, the Australian media were looking for a reason to bash the Indian players and this was the perfect opportunity for them. Many comments were made about the irresponsible behaviour and players were severely trolled across all social media platforms.

Somehow, things settled down and the third Test match started. On the third and the fourth day of the game, the ugly happened. Mohammed Siraj and Jasprit Bumrah went to the umpires, stating that they were racially abused by some of the fans sitting in the stands. The umpires immediately took notice of the players’ complaints and the drunk supporters were thrown out of the stadium. Later, Cricket Australia issued an official letter, apologising to the two players.

Controversy struck once again on the fifth day of the match when Steve Smith was found swishing Rishabh Pant’s guard during the lunch break. Twitterati started trolling Smith stating “Once a cheater, always a cheater”, clearly referring to the ‘ball-tampering’ incident two years ago. However, the Australian coach Justin Langer denied all claims stating that Smith did that with no such intent.

The banter in this game too was on a different level. On one such instance, Pant said to Ashwin, “I can’t wait to get you to the Gabba, Ash, I’ll tell you what, woohoo,”, to which Ashwin replied, “Just like we want to get you to India. That will be your last series.” The fourth Test match is still in progress and it’d be interesting to see what twists and turns the series takes.