The Indian cricketer Virat Kohli is certainly one of the most aggressive cricketers of the world and almost every team prefers not to sledge him when he is batting because if he gets fired up, he can cause a lot of damage by thrashing bowlers for fours and sixes in anger.
During the 2018-19 tour of Australia, the Australian team had also decided that they would not sledge Virat Kohli when he is batting and in a recent interview, the then skipper Tim Paine stated that he used to get irritated when people used to ask him not to sledge Virat Kohli.
Tim Paine said, “People used to say don’t sledge Virat. If you don’t sledge Virat… most of the times still get runs, so it doesn’t really matter whether you’re talking to him or not. I wouldn’t try too much to fire up Virat, but I would try and distract him if I could because if you can get a bit of a distraction, he might play a bad shot or lose his concentration. But it used to annoy me when people say, Oh, don’t sledge him, because people don’t get better because someone’s talking to them.”
Tim Paine was appointed as the skipper of the Australian team after Steve Smith was banned due to Sandpapergate scandal and the Indian players used to sledge him by calling part-time captain.
Tim Paine further said, “When we were batting, it’s kind of up to the individual what they want to do. And I sort of just had enough and thought you also have to stand up for yourselves and your teammates. And that was one of the reasons. He was trying to upset me with the part-time captain, and I sort of went the opposite with him. I was sort of telling him how good he was and that he was the greatest player ever.”
Well we love such battles, don’t we?
