Former Australian fast bowler Merv Hughes is the latest entrant to criticise Indian Test skipper Virat Kohli. The Australian called Kohli a “flog”, a word known as a derogatory Australian slang, according to Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday.
“He [Kohli] is a great player and he is probably a bloke you would love to have on your side, but watching it from afar and watching him in other colours, you just think ‘what a flog’,” the newspaper quoted Hughes as saying in an interview to SEN Radio.
Hughes said that both teams were probably better off with Kohli injured for the final Test at Dharamsala as the skipper would have “gone over the top” if he took to the pitch.
“The Indians played a real tough brand of cricket. I think they went out in the first Test and thought it would be a real piece of cake and when Australia knocked them over in that first Test match, they changed their attitude and they came out real strong and Virat Kohli especially. If he is talking about the Australians playing it hard, it is a bit hypocritical for me because he turned his game around and played that way in especially that second Test and then going into the third Test, it probably was not a bad thing he was injured because he may have gone over the top,” said Hughes, who played 53 Tests matched and 33 One-Day Internationals between 1985 and 1993.
Hughes’s comments come after India beat Australia 2-1 in the four-match series. Kohli has had to bear the brunt of Australian media and cricketers shaming him at every opportunity possible. Former Australian cricketer Brad Hodge accusing him of missing the Dharamsala Test to be fit for the Indian Premier League. However, Hodge issued an apology on Thursday.
Even Kohli retaliated by saying that he no longer considered Australian cricketers his friends, but backtracked on his statement on Thursday.