(AFP Photo)
Former Australian Test captain Tim Paine has openly expressed his irritation with the advice he received to refrain from sledging Virat Kohli during the 2018-19 Border-Gavaskar Trophy series in Australia. Paine, who was engaged in verbal exchanges with the then-Indian captain on several occasions during the series, recalled how he attempted to unsettle Kohli and other Indian players from behind the stumps. In return, he had to endure jibes such as “part-time captain” from the Indian camp.
Reflecting on that memorable series where India clinched their first-ever Test series victory in Australia, Paine revealed his frustration with the persistent suggestions not to engage Kohli verbally.
“People used to say don’t sledge Virat. 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,” Paine was quoted as saying by 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’, the 39-year-old wicketkeeper-batter, who became Australia’s Test captain after Steve Smith was banned for a year due to the Sandpapergate scandal, described the sledging incident by saying, “I was just sitting and watching him, and he gave a few of our guys send-offs. The plan was not to talk to him when he was batting.”
“When we were batting, it’s kind of up to the individual what they want to do. And I sort of just had enough and thought you also have to stand up for yourselves and 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 added.
Kohli featured consistently across all four Tests of the 2018-19 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, accumulating 282 runs over seven innings. His standout performance came in the second Test at Perth, where he scored a century (123) during India’s first innings. Despite his efforts, India ended up losing that match by 146 runs.
