‘Virat is unnecessarily silly and disrespectful’

NEW DELHI: India captain Virat Kohli faced stiff criticism Down Under and at home on Wednesday after his side’s crushing loss to Australia in the second Test.

Former Australia paceman Mitchell Johnson called Kohli “disrespectful” and “silly” over his heated exchanges with fellow skipper Tim Paine during the Perth Test while India great Sunil Gavaskar hit out at “selection blunders”.

It was reported that Kohli belittled Paine as just “a stand-in captain”, a claim angrily denied by India’s team management.

The retired Johnson said the famously combative Kohli’s antics were unnecessary.

“At the end of the match, you should be able to look each other in the eyes, shake hands and say ‘great contest’,” he wrote in a column for Fox Sports.

“Virat Kohli could not do that with Tim Paine, shaking the Australia 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 India captain looking silly,” he added.

After the game both Paine and Kohli played down their on-field sledging, which was picked up by stump microphones.

Kohli described it as simply banter that was part and parcel of Test cricket.

But Johnson said Kohli’s behaviour made a mockery of his pre-series claims that he was a changed man and didn’t plan to initiate any confrontations.

“What we saw this Test says otherwise,” he said.

“From my experiences with him and what I am seeing as an observer now, not much has changed. It was disappointing and that is not the only area where he let himself down.”

Johnson and Kohli have history. In 2014 at Melbourne, Johnson threw the ball that hit Kohli in the back when attempting a run out, sparking a heated debate.

Gavaskar said that the roles of Kohli and coach Ravi Shastri need to be assessed if India fail to perform in the final two Tests in Melbourne and Sydney.

He said that since India’s tour of South Africa at the start of the year, picking the wrong players “has lost matches which could’ve been won.”

If India fail to win the next two matches, “the selectors need to think whether we are getting any benefit from this lot -- the captain, coach and support staff,” Gavaskar had said in a TV interview.