After a disappointing performance in the first Test match against Australia, which India lost by 333 runs, they put in a solid performance in the second Test at Bangalore which they won by 75 runs. Despite levelling the series, India's captain Virat Kohli has not been having the best of series so far as the batsman has managed to score a total of just 40 runs in the four innings.
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The Indian captain has scored 0, 13, 12 and 15 runs so far and given his batting abilities and the number of occasions Kohli has hit centuries for India, those numbers are really disappointing. There has been a lot of sledging going on between the Indian and Australian players during this Test series including the big controversy involving the DRS system.
While the BCCI and CA have decided to bury the hatchet, Mitchell Johnson seems to have started a war of words with Kohli saying that the Indian captain is frustrated because he has not scored a lot of runs in this series. While he feels Kohli is really passionate about the game, he says he is letting his emotions get the better of him.
"He's obviously quite passionate, but I just think he's frustrated because he hasn't scored a run and he's letting his emotions get the better of him. You could sense the vibe change halfway through the match and it coincided with India getting ahead in the game," Johnson wrote in his blog.
"Obviously whenever there's a wicket, the cameras go straight to Kohli to see his reaction - they know they're going to get those kind of reactions from him. And they did! He was giving a send-off to just about every player, which you've got to be very careful with. It can happen sometimes, when you're pumped up and you get a bit too fired up."
Johnson, who retired from cricket in 2015, has had a few altercations with Kohli in the past with the most notable being during India's tour of Australia in 2014-15. Johnson had hit Kohli on the head with a bouncer in the Adelaide Test, but Kohli responded well by smashing two hundreds in the match and then went on to score two more centuries in Melbourne and Sydney. This was also the series which established Kohli's credentials as a batting great in the longest format of the game.
"I had a few run-ins with Virat. To be honest, I think it was every time we played. He hasn't had any time for me since the Boxing Day Test in 2014, when he finished the day saying he had no respect for me. The moment that changed everything was when he blocked a ball back to me and I threw it back at the stumps, seeing Virat was out of his crease and thinking I had a chance of a run out," recalled the Australian.
"The only problem was that Virat was in the way. He got hit in the back and I apologised straight away because it was a complete accident, but that message didn't seem to get through. There were plenty of verbals after that and he hasn't really stopped since," wrote Johnson.
