Tim Paine used to get ‘annoyed’ when people used to tell him not to sledge Virat Kohli.

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Virat Kohli (L) and Tim Paine (R) during a Test in December 2018. AP

Former Australia wicketkeeper Tim Paine has said it used to “annoy” him when people would urge him not to sledge India batter Virat Kohli. The duo famously exchanged many verbal banters during the 2018/19 series when India registered their first series win Down Under.

“If you don’t sledge Virat… most of the time 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,” Former Australian skipper told CricTracker.

“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,” Paine added.

In the Amazon documentary, The Test, Paine described the sledging incident as: “I was just sitting and watching him and he gave few of our guys send-offs. The plan was not to talk to him when he was batting.”

Read | Kohli’s churlishness, and our justification of it, is a testament to how little Indians value good behaviour

“When we were batting, it’s kind of up to the individual they want to do. And I sort of just had enough and thought you also have to stand up for yourselves and stand up for your teammates. And that was one of the reasons,” Paine recalled.

“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”

“You don’t want to get right into a fight with him because that’s what he likes. I was just trying to poke him a little bit and see if I could get him to implode a little bit.” He concluded. Virat Kohli scored a century in Perth in that series.