The matches between India and Australia have always been full of excitement, drama, thrill and of course, on-field clashes. No loyal follower of Indian cricket can forget the 2008 Monkey-gate saga from Sydney when Harbhajan Singh was alleged of racially abusing Andrew Symonds by calling him a monkey. It was followed by Shane Watson’s elbowing incident against Gautam Gambhir later that year at the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium. Reacting to Shane Watson’s sledging, Indian opener elbowed him while running for the second run and in return was handed over a ban.
However, these were just incidents and not a planned move. When you play any sport, you are likely to get involved in such on-field battles and its part of your aggression but what Virat Kohli has been doing in this series so far, almost looks like a premeditated form of aggression which isn’t healthy. While watching the match, you can sense that the Indian skipper is looking for every possible opportunity to express himself on the field and throw some words at the opponents.
Watch Virat Kohli clashing with Steve Smith:
While this is isn’t something new with Kohli and he has always been very animated on the field, this time he has taken a step further. For example, when Steve Smith looked at the dressing room and asked whether he should take the DRS or not, the umpires stepped in immediately and reminded the Aussie skipper that it is against the rules. Even then, the Indian captain poked his nose in the incident and charged towards Stevie saying few words.
More importantly, it is also affecting Virat’s performance. In this series, he has failed to score a single half-century which is kind of strange as well given the kind of form he was in, leading into the series. One can ignore his failures since everyone is bound to have them at some point in their career but you cannot ignore the way he is been getting out in this series. In this first Test, he was bowled as Kohli didn’t offer any stroke to a straight delivery and something similar happened in the second Test but this he was judged LBW.
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The series has reached an interesting stage with both sides level at 1-1 and even a single mistake from here can prove very costly. The Indian team would want their captain to step up and perform like a brave warrior he is but for that, he needs to take his mind off of other things. As the great Sachin Tendulkar once said, ‘let your bat do the talking’.