South Africa vs England 2019-20: Harsha Bhogle reacts to outrage on his Tweet on the Vernon Philander-Jos Buttler controversy
Vernon Philander and Jos Buttler engaged in a controversy in the second Test between England and South Africa in Cape Town. It happened on the final day of the game when the Proteas were trying to save the match in a chase of 438 runs.
South Africa fans were hopeful that Philander would take his side over the line, but he was distracted by Buttler. The English wicket-keeper hurled abuses at Philander, calling him a ‘f*****g knobhead’. He didn’t stop at all, and kept using expletives for quite some time.
England went on to win the game by 189 runs, but Buttler’s behaviour came under the scanner. In the wake of the incident, Harsha Bhogle took to Twitter and wrote, “What a pity…”
But the Indian commentator’s reaction didn’t go down well with his followers, who criticised him for showing bias in such situations. Netizens opined that Bhogle doesn’t put in similar reactions when the Indian captain Virat Kohli gets abusive on the field.
Bhogle, having noticed the spree of negative comments on his Tweet, posted another Tweet which said,
“The responses to this this post, a purely personal opinion on sledging and abuse in cricket, by the way independent of which player it is emanating from, show you how much anger we have injected into ourselves.”
The third Test of the four-match series, which is currently tied at 1-1, will start from 16th January at St George's Park Cricket Ground.