India captain Shubman Gill accused England of breaching the spirit of cricket on Tuesday afternoon - the fourth day of the Lord's Test - when openers Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett resorted to time-wasting tactics by arriving late to the crease. Their delayed arrival denied India an over from the Nursery End, which was seen as a key opportunity to snap up a quick wicket. The incident led to a fracas on the pitch, with Gill confronting Crawley when the latter called for physios.

“A lot of people have been talking about it. Let me just clear the air once and for all. The English batsmen on that day, they had seven minutes of play left. They were 90 seconds late to come to the crease. Not 10, not 20 - 90 seconds late,” Gill said at the press conference on Tuesday.

“Most of the teams use such delaying tactics. Even if we were in that position, we would also have liked to play fewer overs, but there’s a way to do it. We felt if you get hit on your body, the physios are allowed to come in. That is fair. But to be able to come 90 seconds late to the crease is not something that I would think comes in the spirit of the game,” he added.

Things got ugly when Gill hurled a cuss word after Crawley repeatedly pulled away in the middle of Jasprit Bumrah’s run-up. The entire Indian team circled the batters, making their presence at the crease increasingly uncomfortable.

Gill, however, admitted that he was not proud of what exactly happened at Lord's and said emotions got the better of him due to England’s time-wasting tactics.

“Leading up to that event, a lot of things happened that we thought should not have happened. I wouldn’t say it is something that I’m very proud of, but there was a build-up to that. It didn’t just come out of nowhere. We had no intention of doing that whatsoever,” Gill explained.

“You’re playing a game. You’re playing to win, and there are a lot of emotions involved. There are things happening that should not happen. But sometimes the emotions come out of nowhere,” he added.

England captain Ben Stokes later said that their aggressive attitude on the field on the final day was a reaction to India’s outburst against their openers.

“Obviously, it started off that night when Zak and Ben had to go out. We had the advantage of bowling last in the Test match to win. We just threw everything that we possibly could at India - not only with our skills but also with our energy in the field as well,” Stokes said while addressing the media before Gill on Tuesday.

“I guess it was a really nice moment as a team when you speak about something like that and everyone buys into that,” he added.

Stokes, however, clarified that his team will not engage in any fights with the opposition for the remainder of the series.

“We’re (not) going to purposely go out and look to start (riling up the opponent), because then that will take our focus off what we actually need to do out in the middle. But by no means are we going to take a backward step and let any opposition try to be confrontational towards us. That goes for most teams. But the series has been great to play. It has been great to watch,” Stokes said.