Former Australian captain opens up on sledging Virat Kohli
Former Australian captain Tim Paine has revealed that he used to get annoyed by suggestions of not sledging Indian batting megastar Virat Kohli. In a recent interview, Paine opened up on his memorable exchanges with Kohli during India’s historic tour of Australia in 2018-19, where the visitors registered their first ever Test series win Down Under.
Paine stated that people don’t improve just because someone is talking to them on the field. While he acknowledged that sledging Kohli may not necessarily prevent him from scoring runs, Paine tried to distract the talismanic batter by engaging him in verbal duels. “I wouldn’t go out of my way to deliberately provoke Kohli, but I would try other tactics like distraction if I thought it could influence his focus and lead to a mistake,” he said.
In the Amazon documentary ‘The Test’, Paine recalled one specific incident where words were exchanged after Kohli gave some send-offs to Australian players. Paine revealed that the plan was to not communicate with Kohli when he was batting, but when Australia came out to bat he felt the need to stand up for his teammates. Their heated exchange of words eventually led to a war of words with Kohli trying to get under Paine’s skin by questioning his leadership. However, Paine cleverly played it down and praised Kohli instead of reacting angrily.
Paine conceded that players like Kohli who thrive under pressure are difficult to sledges successfully. “You don’t want to get into an outright fight with him as that is what he enjoys. I was simply poking at him a bit to check if he would lose his composure,” the former wicket-keeper batsman signed off.
