Australia stunned the hosts with superb application – and Steve Smith’s leadership – in the opening Test at Pune but India fought back with a win at Bengaluru.
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It also got the Australian cricket media’s goat.
Cheteshwar Pujara’s more than 11 hours of over-my-dead-body defiance for India was matched by a game-saving final day rearguard action from Australians Peter Handscomb and Shaun Marsh.
Headlined “Virat Kohli’s Donald Trump-like contempt for the truth making a mockery of the game”, an Australia daily wrote that the Indian captain is a law unto himself with no one – not even the ICC or his own board – holding him accountable for his continual perpetuation of fake news.
Australian cricket legend Adam Gilchrist has called Virat Kohli a great leader and said it is time for both the countries to put an end to the “cheatgate” controversy before it turns into infamous 2008 “monkeygate” episode.
Australia is in equal parts confident and wary about the corner it has Kohli boxed into. We have played enough first-class cricket, we know the conditions.
That said, Australia is going in for the kill and believes it has taken home advantage out of the picture.
Kohli admitted that a call can only be taken by physio Patrick Farhart in the evening. Much is being said about Kohli trying to have a go at Steve Smith and that he’s unsportsmanlike.
Kohli was confident the team can do well even in his absence.
The high-voltage series is poised at 1-1. I’m sure they [India] would be disappointed that they couldn’t get the result they were after. This is a breach of that phoney, antiquated and mostly male-dominated notion of sports being a battle of men who compete hard on the field using fair or at times foul means but never talk about it after they leave the field.
The feisty top-order batsman damaged his right shoulder when diving to save a boundary on the first day of the penultimate test in Ranchi and was off the field during most of Australia’s first innings in the drawn game.
“It’s a tough place to play”. The thing about fine lines is, no one has the sole right to draw them.
Steven Smith on Matt Renshaw: “For a guy that’s only played a handful of Tests, to go out there and just play his game and back what he’s worked on over the last few weeks has been fantastic”.
The 28-year-old skipper also made it abundantly clear that the rules for every player in the team are the same and he’s no exception. The injury was not serious but it could have gotten worse.
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“I think it’s really sad to hear such comments”. A few former players too joined the chorus. He took time out of his busy schedule to tweet about the matter.
