Tempers flare at Eden: Watson,Bisla,Gambhir,Dravid in on-field spat

Gambhir joined fighting duo Watson and Bisla while Dravid tried to play peacemaker.

Tempers flared at Eden Garden on Thursday after an altercation between Shane Watson and Manvinder Bisla.

Four overs into Kolkata Knight Riders run chase against Rajasthan Royals,something almost unthinkable happened. Shane Watson was bowling to Manvinder Bisla and had conceded a couple of boundaries in his first five balls. The last ball was fuller and Bisla played it back to the bowler. Watson charged down in his follow through,gave the batsman a long hard glare,muttered something under his breath and allegedly threatened to throw a ball back at the batsman.

PHOTOS: Gautam Gambhir in a verbal duel with Rahul Dravid

That was the starting point of a verbal duel between Watson and Bisla. Bisla went to Royals captain Rahul Dravid and said a few words. While Dravid tried to calm down Bisla,the stumper wanted him to cool off Watson first.

Then KKR skipper Gambhir Gambhir,who was batting at the other end with Bisla,joined the heated discussion.

Didn’t exchange harsh words with Dravid,I respect him: Gambhir

In the next over,when Gambhir was stumped by Dinesh Yagnik off Watson,it looked that the batsman again exchanged some words with Dravid before walking off. This is the second time time that Gambhir was involved in such an altercation. In an earlier IPL match,he and Bangalore skipper Virat Kohli were involved in an ugly on-field spat.

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Even as tempers flared,Yusuf Pathan kept his cool to help KKR to 8-wicket win over Royals. But that incident somewhat took the shine off Kolkata’s resounding win,which kept them alive in the tournament.