Australian vice-captain David Warner and off-spinner Nathan Lyon attracted a fair share of controversy with chances of disciplinary actions for their behavior after running out AB de Villiers on day 4 of the first Test match against South Africa in Kingsmeed Durban.
Chasing a daunting target of 417, South Africa were already on the mat losing two wickets for 39, when they were further pegged back by the untimely run out of ace batsman AB de Villiers for a duck. But what followed immediately after the AB’s run out grabbed everyone’s attention.
It all transpired in the twelfth over of the South African innings. De Villiers, yet to get off the mark, set off for a quick single seeing striker Aiden Markram taking a few initial few steps. To his dismay, Markram pulled out mid-way, leaving AB very little chance of making it back to the crease. Standing at square leg, Warner released the ball quickly towards the bowling end; Lyon collected it and dislodged the bails to find a despairing de Villiers short of his ground.
Lyon appeared to have dropped the bowl on de Villiers’ chest without any proper justification after he had successfully completed the run out. Lyon’s act did not go down well with experts including former South African skipper Graeme Smith.
If Lyon’s little ball drop raised a lot of eyebrows, Warner’s rather animated celebration forced the viewers roll back their eyes. The Australian vice-captain, gave a mouthful to striker Aiden Markram using animated gestures, sparking off a social media debate on acceptable behavior on the cricket field.
Match referee Jeff Crowe is expected to investigate the incident, with ICC laws dictating that players must not use “language, actions or gestures which disparage or which could provoke an aggressive reaction from a batsman upon his/her dismissal.”
However, both Australia and South Africa played the incident down with centurion Aiden Markram terming the Warner’s reaction quite normal and nothing over the top.
"It's natural when you play against the Australians that there's a lot of chatter on the field.I certainly don't mind. It never really gets out of line either, not a lot of swearing or things like that happen,” said Makram, after playing lone hand of 143 in South Africa’s battle to save the match.
Australian wicket-keeper Tim Paine, who was quite close to the action also echoed Markram’s views,"There wasn't too much aggression," Paine said. "We spoke to Aiden about running out their best player and one of the best players in the world.”
"Had someone had run 'Smithy' (Steve Smith) out in our team you'd cop a fair bit of a ribbing.
It was nothing aggressive; it was just reminding him of what he had just done, trying to get him off his game, the same as they do to us,” said Paine.
Australia are one-wicket away from victory despite an amazing partnership between Aiden Markram and Quinton de Kock.