Johnson: Kohli ‘looking silly’

Former Australia paceman Mitchell Johnson has ripped into Virat Kohli, saying the Indian skipper was disrespectful and made to look silly during the test in Perth.

Tim Paine had the last laugh after guiding Australia to a 146-run win, but the tensions are set to flood over into the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. On Tuesday, both Paine and Kohli did their best to play down their rift, saying there were no verbal taunts that crossed the line.

The captains are set to be heavily scrutinised in the Boxing Day Test, and Johnson was quick to take a swipe at Kohli’s Perth behaviour. “At the end of the match you should be able to look each other in the eyes, shake hands and say ‘great contest’,” Johnson wrote in his Fox Sports column. “Virat Kohli could not do that with Tim Paine, shaking the Australian captain’s hand but barely making eye contact with him. To me, that is disrespectful.

“Kohli gets away with more than most cricketers simply because he is Virat Kohli and he gets placed on a pedestal but this test left the Indian captain looking silly. “Kohli has contradicted the things he said at the start of the series. He said he was a changed person - that he was coming in with a different attitude to last time and wasn’t going to initiate anything. “What we saw this test says otherwise.”

-AAP