Aakash Chopra differentiates between Australia and India’s sporting culture when dealing with ‘personal milestones’

David Warner was well and truly in sight of history in the Day-Night Test at the Adelaide Oval. Given the sorry state of the Pakistan bowling attack, it only seemed to be a matter of time before the southpaw surpassed the legendary Brian Lara’s 400. After he reached 300, Warner started pressing the accelerator, pulverising the visitors’ bowlers to whatever extent he can.

That he was scoring at an alarming rate, it wouldn’t have taken much time for Warner to topple Lara. He had Matthew Wade, who looked fluent as well, for company. It was then when Tim Paine, the Australian skipper, decided to make a call, something that didn’t go down well with the netizens. Paine declared the Australian first innings with the score at 589/3 in 127 overs.

David Warner remains stranded on 335

Warner stayed not out on 335 and he went off the park to a round of applause from the packed house at the Adelaide Oval. On the other hand, Paine was a recipient of brickbats for not letting Warner get to the milestone. Warner now has Australia’s second-highest individual Test score after Matthew Hayden’s 380. Below him are Mark Taylor and Don Bradman with 334s.

Moreover, Warner is 10th in the list of all-time top individual scorers in Test cricket. In the first Test at The Gabba, he scored in excess of 150 and backed it up with another jaw-dropping knock. As far as Paine is concerned, even as he faced criticism, a section of the people reckoned that he did the right thing, keeping in mind the well-being of the Australian team.

In the meantime, Aakash Chopra, the former Indian cricketer and current commentator, opined on the talked-about matter. The experienced campaigner drew comparison between India’s and Australia’s cricket culture. As per Chopra, in India, people try and justify when personal milestones become detrimental to a team’s progress in a match.

He took to Twitter and wrote, “While we applaud Australia’s cricket culture of sport before self, we don’t condemn (in fact, we justify) when personal milestones become a stumbling block in a team’s progress elsewhere. Double standard, eh?”

Here is Aakash Chopra’s tweet