Earlier in the day, Cricket Australia came out in support of Aussie skipper Steve Smith calling Virat Kohli’s remarks outrageous. When he was caught trapped in front of the wickets, Smith looked in the direction of the dressing room before umpire Nigel Llong interfered.
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A fired up Kohli also hit back at off-spinner Nathan Lyon for saying India would fall away without their inspirational skipper making runs.
“I shouldn’t have done that”, said Smith in the post-match press conference. We observed that, we told the match referee and the umpire that it’s been happening for the last three days and it has to stop. “I pointed it out to the umpire as well and that’s why the umpire was at him”.
He also enjoyed another slice of fortune on 73 when a strong appeal for leg before off Jadeja was turned down by the umpire with replays indicating the decision would have been overturned on review had India not already used up their two referrals.
Rules pertaining to the usage of DRS clearly state that “signals from dressing room must not be given”. “So shouldn’t have done that”.
However, Smith claimed that it was a brain fade on his behalf after listening to Handscomb.
“I turned around and said ‘what do you reckon?'”.
“Honestly, if someone makes a mistake while batting, that’s a brain fade”.
“I referred smudga (Smith) to look at the box.my fault and was unaware of the rule”.
“If Australia are using the DRS as Kohli alleged, then that is unacceptable”.
“There are lines you don’t cross on the cricket field”.
“Probably on their side it might but our side again I’ll say we were very good the way we went about it and trying to play the game the way we want to play it moving forward”, he said when asked if the series would remain tense.
I mean, Kohli knows more about cricket than most people, but surely he wouldn’t know off the top of his head where the incident occurred and that it was on YouTube.
“I didn’t say that”.
A couple of days ago, former Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy suggested he’s losing respect for Kohli because of the latter’s over aggression and sledging.
With India looking all but comfortable in the second Test match in the ongoing series against Australia, Indian cricket fans had only few things to cheer for.
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Steve Smith admitted to a “brain fade” but said it was just a one-off instance. It is better still that he had cautioned the match referee and umpires in advance of Australia’s dishonest practices and this helped them deal firmly with Smith’s transgressions.
