I Wouldn’t Try Too Much To Fire Him Up’: Tim Paine Recalls Moments When Virat Kohli Faced Sledging in Australia

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Sledging and Virat Kohli go hand in hand in cricket. The former Indian captain is known for his aggressive approach on the field which has often hogged the limelight Back in 2014, Kohli was the centre of attraction when India toured Australia for a four-match Test series, Virat attracted severe criticism for his attitude but that hardly affected his performance on the pitch. Then the 25-year-old, finished the Test series with 692 runs, second highest in that series, Kohli has since then gone on to establish his authority in red ball cricket and has amassed close to 9000 runs: India will again travel to Australia to play a five match Test series as a part of the ongoing World Test Championship this year and Virat is expected to play a central role in the plans.

The 37 year old bid goodbye to T201 cricket following India’s T20 World cup victory but is expected to concentrate more on Test cricket. India contested the WTC final on the last two occasions but had to taste defeat at the hands of New Zealand and Australia respectively. Gautam Gambhir is all set to take charge and India will definitely eye that coveted WTC title which has eluded them for a long time.

Ahead of the upcoming Border-Gavaskar Trophy, former Australian wicketkeeper Tim Paine revealed what happens when Virat Kohli is being sledged on the pitch. Paine told Crictracker.com, “People used to say, don’t sledge Virat. If you don’t sledge Virat… most of the time still get ruris, 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.”