India Coach Breaks Silence On Haris Rauf’s Plane Crash Gesture: ‘Boys Stayed…’ | Cricket News

India men’s assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate on Tuesday clarified the team’s position on the provocative gestures from Pakistan’s Haris Rauf and Sahibzada Farhan in Sunday’s Asia Cup 2025 Super-Four clash in Dubai. The Dutch coach said that India noticed the actions, but they don’t ‘concern’ them, adding that he was proud of how the batting lineup responded to that with their skills, without ‘losing their minds’ over it.

Farhan did a gun-firing gesture to celebrate his half-century in the first innings. Rauf was more hysterical, celebrating a wicket with a plane-crash gesture and repeatedly getting under the skin of the Indian crowd with hand signs clearly alluding to the four-day border conflict between India and Pakistan after Operation Sindoor. He has been severely criticised in India since, with many calling for the ICC to sanction him.

India shied away from any political stunts, but Abhishek Sharma and Shubman Gill weren’t coy in engaging Rauf and Shaheen Afridi when sledged during their batting.

“Let me just say, the amount of pressure that’s been heaped on the players because of the situation, it’s very difficult to control their behaviour,” ten Doeschate said in a press conference, defending Sharma and Gill’s actions. “I did see some of the things Haris did, and, you know, that’s not our concern. Like I said earlier, we’re really proud of how the guys carried themselves, you know, they were on fire with their bats on the field.”

ten Doeschate added that it took efforts from the team to keep its calm and focus in the emotionally charged game but they did it well.

“I’ll say, given the situation, you can see why guys are behaving and what they’re trying to portray. But we were very focused on how we wanted to play. I think we stuck to the cricket really well. It would have been easy to lose our minds at that point, given the celebration as well. Some words were said during the game from the Pakistan bowling unit, but I thought the guys stuck really well to the task of getting the job done and winning the game,” he added.

India are 2-0 up over Pakistan for this tournament. They might come across each other for a third time if both teams manage to reach the final on Sunday.