India vs England: What James Anderson Said About Jonny Bairstow-Virat Kohli's Feisty Exchange During Edgbaston Test

England won the rescheduled fifth Test against India at Edgbaston earlier this week and as a result, the five-match series ended as 2-2. Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root were the stars with the bat as England chased down 378 to win the Edgbaston Test. However, much of the attention went to the on-field feisty exchange that took place between Bairstow and Virat Kohli during the first innings of the Test. Now, England pacer James Anderson has given his take on the incident and he also revealed what Bairstow had said in the dressing room about the exchange with Kohli.

"Jonny was about 80 not out at the break in the first innings and Virat had been going at him and sledging him a lot. This was early in his innings as well I don't know if you saw the strike-rate difference? His strike-rate was about 20 before Virat started sledging him and about 150 after he sledged him," Anderson said on the Tailenders Podcast.

"His first words back in the dressing room at lunch were: 'When will they learn to shut it?' As Jimmy Neesham put it in his tweet, if there's somebody you don't want to rub up the wrong way and get them proper in the zone, into the game mode, it is Jonny Bairstow," he added.

Bairstow was struggling initially having scored 13 from 61 deliveries and survived a few close calls. But it all changed when Virat Kohli decided to launch a few verbal volleys at Bairstow. The two bickered for a while on the field and Bairstow then proceeded to smash 93 off his next 79 balls.

The video of Kohli and Bairstow going at it also went viral on social media.

"We have played against each other for a solid 10 years now. It's a bit of craic. We are fiercely competitive on the field and that's what it is about. We are playing Test cricket and we are two competitors. That's why we play the game and it brings the best out of us. Whatever it takes, you want to get your team over the line and that's part and parcel of the game," Bairstow had said in a video shared on Twitter by Sky Sports News.

Topics mentioned in this article

India Cricket Team England Cricket Team James Anderson Virat Kohli Jonny Bairstow Cricket England vs India, 2022