India thrashed Bangladesh by an innings and 46 runs in the historic day-night test match at Eden Gardens to complete their 12th consecutive series win at home.
As impressive as that achievement is, everyone’s attention was drawn to another clash at Eden Gardens on Day 3 of the second Test. Match commentators Sanjay Manjrekar and Harsha Bhogle seemed to have a small spat while they were on air, which led to significant Twitter backlash for Manjrekar, who isn’t the most popular commentator out there.
What began the argument was Harsha Bhogle voicing his opinion that the pink-ball Test should have a post-mortem examination to judge the visibility of the ball, which is a fair suggestion. "When there is a post-mortem done of this, the visibility of the ball will be one of things to look at," said Bhogle. Manjrekar, who played 37 Tests for India between 1987-1996, disagreed with Harsha Bhogle's statement.
"Don't think so. Don't think visibility is an issue," commented Manjrekar, dismissing the suggestion out of hand.
Harsha Bhogle refused to back down, and urged that the idea needed to be taken to the players to find out their views on it, "[We] just need to ask the players what they think." he said. Manjrekar seemed to take this insistence from Bhogle to be an insult to his authority, and snidely comments that had Bhogle played cricket, he would know that visibility wasn’t an issue - suggesting that his international career made him more knowledgeable than the pure analyst Harsha Bhogle.
"You need to ask, for those who have played cricket, it's evident it can be seen well," said Manjrekar. Bhogle ignored the jab, and explained that one’s cricketing history shouldn’t be a limitation or a ceiling for their continued growth as an analyst.
Bhogle said, "The only reason you need to ask is, having played cricket should never be a limitation or a ceiling to learning. We would never have had T20 cricket otherwise".
But a stubborn Manjrekar was never going to agree with Bhogle as he abruptly said: "Point taken, don't agree", declaring the topic closed. The netizens who bore witness to this scene took to Twitter in droves to call out Manjrekar for his disrespectful comments.
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