Two England players, Ollie Pope and Joe Root, were seen shadow-batting on The Oval pitch on Wednesday, July 30, merely a day after the controversy between India head coach Gautam Gambhir and curator Lee Fortis. Gambhir and Fortis clashed over a perceived 2.5 metre rule.As per pictures shared by journalist Sahil Malhotra on the social media platform X, Pope and Root were seemingly shadow-batting on the pitch where the fifth Test of the ongoing Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy starts on Thursday, July 31.This was rather strange given how big a spat India head coach Gambhir had had with curator Fortis a day earlier. Allegedly, Gambhir and his support staff were asked to stay away from the pitch when they wanted to take a look at it before the match.Fortis had reportedly asked Gambhir and batting coach Sitanshu Kotak to stay at least 2.5 metres away from the pitch while they were inspecting it on Tuesday. This led to a heated altercation between the curator and India's head coach.On Wednesday, however, the pictures of these two England players shadow-batting on the pitch raised serious concerns about Fortis' comments a day earlier. See the pictures here:India are 1-2 down in the five-match series, with one Test yet to be playedEngland lead the five-match series 2-1 after securing victories in the first Test in Leeds and the third Test at Lord's. India won the second Test in Birmingham and drew the fourth in heroic fashion in Manchester.India batted first in the fourth Test and put up a decent total of 358 on the board. England, however, responded in fine fashion, and scored 669, thanks to Joe Root's stunning 150 and Ben Stokes' 141.India faced major setbacks early on in the second innings, losing Yashasvi Jaiswal and Sai Sudharsan in the first over itself. However, the team then rallied together to script one of the most memorable comebacks in Test cricket.Centuries from captain Shubman Gill (103), Ravindra Jadeja (107*) and Washington Sundar (101*), as well as a gritty 90 from KL Rahul, ensured that India drew the match comfortably, and took the series into the final Test.