Crash: Virat Kohli likes to say Australian’s hate him, but do we really?
India had been searching for 50 years to find a player brave enough and good enough to tackle Australia head on. That man is Virat Kohli, Robert Craddock writes.
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“You guys hate me. And I like that.’’
So said a swaggering Virat Kohli during his 2014-15 Australian Tour de Force but he was only half right.
Yes, he did like the fact that he was being disliked but the hatred wasn’t pure.
It was the special cocktail of irritation, offence and deep-seated yet well-concealed respect Australian fans and players show towards a touring cricketer bold enough to play the way Australians do.
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Unyielding English fast man John Snow felt it in the 1970s. So did Ian Botham, Kevin Pietersen and Richard Hadlee in their distinguished journeys Down Under.
How dare you look Australia in the eye and try and stare them down?
This is one of the reasons why Australia should cherish the sight of Kohli in the one Test he will play on this season’s Australian tour in Adelaide before heading home to India for the birth of his first child.
Because cricketers of his ilk are so rare.
India has been searching for 50 years to find a player brave enough to say — and believe — the eight words uttered by Kohli in the first paragraph.
For years Australian audiences became accustomed to Indian tourists arriving on our shores almost expecting to lose.
But the world has changed. India has led the world in the technical revolution and with this seminal shift has come money, power and clout.
Kohli, the man with the fire in his eyes, is the very embodiment of the new India.
The last time he visited Australia two years ago India became the first Asian team to win a series in Australia and Kohli, while restricted to one century and a manageable average of 40, left his mark as a charismatic leader.
The first sign the world was changing came six years earlier during a Sydney Test when Kohli was fielding at the boundary and copped some abuse.
He gave the crowd the finger and this was caught by photographers and fined 50 per cent of his match fee.
Australia wasn’t sure whether they were seeing a cheeky upstart way ahead of himself or a man of steel who simply would not be pushed around.
They got their answer three years later when he scored four centuries in four Tests on a breakthrough Australian tour, explaining how the taunts from fieldsmen fired him up.
“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’,’’ Kohli said.
“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 it really excites me and brings the best out of me.
“So they don’t seem to be learning the lesson.”
Australia tried to put him off his game but any verbal taunts became smelling salts under his nostrils.
When he walked out to bat, Australian players would say: “It’s all about you. You think you’re the big show.”
But he got off on individual challenges such as when Mitchell Johnson had a shy at the stumps when Kohli was batting and ended up hitting the batsman.
“I was really annoyed with him hitting me with the ball, and I told him that’s not on — ‘Try and hit the stumps next time, not my body’,” he said.
“There’s no good reason that I should respect some people when they are not respecting me.”
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Kohli scored 68 runs off 72 balls he had faced from Johnson, clearly motivated by the need to make his point.
His bravado polarised fans and not just on national lines.
There was an incident during the Boxing Day Test that season when Shikhar Dhawan and Shane Watson had an exchange of words.
Kohli was quick to join in, talking to the opposition and the umpires.
“What is he doing there speaking to the umpires? He’s not even captain,” Ian Healy said on commentary.
Bill Lawry responded with: “Do you even know what he’s saying to the umpire? He has every right to do so. If Australia are willing to dish it (verbals) out they should be able to cop it, too.”
Through it all a great mutual respect grew. In 2016 during a white-ball series in Australia Kohli explained why he loved playing here.
“I love coming to this country, it has a really positive vibe,” he said.
“Most importantly, I can be myself here. I can be normal. I can walk around on the streets. That’s something that I really love to do to discover myself rather than staying in a world which is sometimes full of highs and sometimes full of lows.’’
Steve Smith has ended up on both sides of Kohli.
In the Bangalore Test of 2017 Kohli was clearly angry with Smith for looking towards the dressing-room to decide whether to take DRS on a dismissal but fell short of accusing him of cheating.
“I didn’t use that word. There are loop holes in every technology,” Kohli said.
“People are bound to make mistakes …. But we take our own decisions, we don’t look for confirmation upstairs.
“I saw it happen twice, their players going upstairs (looking at the dressing room). That is why the umpire knew what was happening. We brought it to their attention, and told the match referee. They knew what was going on.
“This is a line you don’t cross. I would never do it.”
Then, at the Oval in England during the 2019 World Cup, Kohli turned to the Indian dominated crowd and gestured to them to applaud Steve Smith, who has copped boos and abuse when fielding at the boundary.
“What has happened is in the past, I felt bad for him. We’ve had issues in the past, we have had arguments on the field. But you don’t want to see a guy feeling that heat every time he goes out to play. It’s not acceptable. He didn’t do anything to be booed.’’
The hero, the villain and all shades in between. Kohli and Australia have seen it all.
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