“I was really annoyed with him hitting me with the ball, and I told him that’s not on”
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After a heated and intense battle against Mitchell Johnson on the third day of the third Test in Melbourne, India batsman Virat Kohli has announced that he has “no reason to respect” the Australian left-arm pace bowler.
Things between Kohli and Johnson reached boiling point when Johnson fielded the ball while following through and ended up hitting Kohli when he threw the ball at the striker’s stumps.
Following that, both Kohli and Johnson exchanged words before the umpires intervened and separated the duo.
“I was really annoyed with him hitting me with the ball, and I told him that’s not on,” Kohli said. “‘Try and hit the stumps next time, not my body.’ You have got to send the right message across. I am not there to take to some unnecessary words or chats from someone. I am going there to play cricket, back myself. There’s no good reason that I should respect unnecessarily some people when they are not respecting me.”
Kohli also noted that he has scored five out of his nine Test centuries against Australia since the Baggy Greens’ aggression helps him play better.
“It was going on throughout the day,” Kohli said. “They were calling me a spoilt brat, and I said, ‘Maybe that’s the way I am. You guys hate me, and I like that.’ I don’t mind having a chat on the field, and it worked in my favour I guess. I like playing against Australia because it is very hard for them to stay calm, and I don’t mind an argument on the field, and it really excites me and brings the best out of me. So they don’t seem to be learning the lesson.
“You always have a few who can’t keep calm in every team. So I have my targets.”
Kohli also claimed that Australia have been saying a lot of things about India’s habit of collapsing under pressure.
“Good for them,” Kohli said. “Some words coming out of their mouth. They have the right to talk I guess. They are two-nil up right now. Would have been interesting if it had been 1-1, and the same sort of sentences or words had come through from them.
“It is funny. When you are on top you can sort of say anything you want. It’s when the chips are down that you have got to stand up. Say what you have to say and then go out there and prove it. When we played in India there weren’t so many words coming back from them. Which was surprising. We are two-nil down, we still took them on today, and showed what we can do with the bat, which is the character of this Indian team.”
When asked if India’s attempt to sledge Johnson while he was batting during the second Test in Brisbane backfired, Kohli said: “There he was batting, and there was no pressure on him as a batsman. That’s not his job. His job is to take wickets and he was going at 4.7 an over today. Didn’t get a wicket throughout the day, and I backed myself to take him on even if I keep talking to him. You cannot then back off after saying a few words and then not show it with your skill. I decided whenever he comes on to bowl I will back myself and take him on. I don’t mind having a word back neither does he, so we kept going on.”
Kohli went on to score a career-best 169 on the third day before he was dismissed by Johnson on the last ball of the day.
“I was confident of my batting but I can go through with that phase,” Kohli said. “But Jinks [Rahane] helped us as well from the other end. He kept taking him [Johnson] on, didn’t let him settle into a rhythm, which was very important for us with the new ball especially. That’s how you play Test cricket, that’s how your partner helps you and vice versa. If he is in a spot of bother, I keep taking on the bowler. It was good to bat out there with Jinks today. I am glad he kept taking on the bowlers when I had a chat with them.”
Kohli made it clear that he has a lot of respect for many of the Australian players, but Johnson wasn’t one of them.
“I respect quite a few of them, but someone who doesn’t respect me I have no reason to respect him,” Kohli said. “There were words in Adelaide as well where they said, ‘No unnecessary respect for him.’ I said, ‘I don’t need it. I am out here to play cricket, not to hear anyone’s respect. As long as I am scoring runs, I am happy with it. If you like it, good. If you don’t, I am not bothered.’ I don’t really need to care about what they think as far as respecting me or me respecting them is concerned. I have got a nice friendship with a few of them. Friendly chats, but someone who is not backing off, someone who is saying anything that comes to mouth I have no reason to respect him.”
Speaking about the dispute between Kohli and Johnson, Australia pace bowler Ryan Harris said: “We all respect him. He’s a pretty good player so I don’t know where he gets that from. I respect him, and I know all the boys in the change room respect him because he has come out and his bat does the talking. Where he gets that from I am not sure. There’s a bit of banter on the field, but if that doesn’t stay out there and comes up here, he needs to have a look at that.
“There were a few things out there today that were said. I think the thing that fired him up the most was when Mitch threw the ball at the stumps and he was in the way.”
However, Harris admitted that Kohli was looking for trouble during his argument with Johnson.
“We try not to say too much to him, but sometimes he brings it on himself, I guess, when he starts it. It’s never personal, it’s always a bit of fun,” Harris said. “It’s interesting to hear him say [all] that. It’s probably a good thing. Because he’s probably worried about that. We need him to worry about that instead of batting. If he’s worrying about stuff like that, hopefully his batting goes downhill. That’s probably the way we think.”