Just days after watching his team fight their way — in more ways than one — to a draw in the Old Trafford Test in Manchester, Gautam Gambhir got into a fight of his own at the Oval stadium on Tuesday as the Indian team attended their first training session before their final Test against England. In visuals captured by the travelling flock of Indian media, Gambhir can be seen yelling at a burly man, who was later identified as Oval pitch curator Lee Fortis.
Gambhir can be heard yelling ‘you don’t tell us what we need to do’. Later, India’s batting coach Sitanshu Kotak had revealed that the Oval staff had tried to tell Indian team management when they had gone to check out the wicket to stand two and a half metres away. This had sparked the confrontation between India head coach Gambhir and Fortis, where he can be seen telling the India coach that he will raise a complaint with the match referee.
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So who is Lee Fortis, the Oval pitch curator Gautam Gambhir was yelling at?
Fortis has been in charge of the pitch at the Oval ion London since 2012, when he was brought on to replace Bill Gordon.
Before 2012, Fortis had previously worked as an assistant head groundsman at the Oval before leaving in 2006. He had a stint tending the Honourable Artillery Company ground in the City of London.
After taking charge of the Oval ground as Surrey’s Head of Ground Staff, Fortis claimed the award for the best multi-day pitches for the third consecutive year at the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) 2024 Grounds Manager of the Year Awards last year.
A statement from the Grounds Management Association (GMA) – the UK’s leading membership body dedicated to supporting grounds staff – noted: “Fortis and his team at the Oval earned consistently outstanding marks for their County Championship and Test pitches during the 2024 domestic and international season to win the Bernard Flack Memorial Trophy. This is also the fourth time in total that Fortis has scooped the prize since starting his role since 2012.”
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