Virat Kohli and Tim Paine exchange words on third day of Perth Test

An India-Australia contest would expectedly have a lot of verbal warfare and it was towards the end of the third day’s play that the levels of tension just took another form as the skippers from both camps had a go at each other.

Virat Kohli had scored a fine hundred in India’s first innings and had been dismissed in a controversial manner with Peter Handscomb claiming a catch at second slip while video evidence showed that the ball bounced just before his fingers.

Kohli walked off nonetheless but came out firing his verbal volleys where Australia were batting.

Virat Kohli and Tim Paine are back at it!

The two have locked horns again as tension builds on the 4th day of the 2nd Test.

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“If he messes it up, it’s 2-0,” the stump mic caught Kohli’s words when his opposite number Tim Paine survived a caught behind appeal.

Paine decided to give it back and said, ” You’ve got to bat first, big head”.

KOHLI : If u mess it up it's 2-0

PAINE : You Got to Bat First D***Head

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But Nathan Lyon, the star bowler for Australia seemed to play down the incident and said, ““I think Tim just asked him where he was going for dinner that’s all. I’ve played enough cricket against Virat to know what he’s like, and I’m not worried about what he’s doing or what India’s doing.”

“Virat is a great player, he plays on emotion, we all know that, and to be honest I’m not too concerned how Virat reacts or the way he conducts himself. I’m just worried about what we can control in the Australian dressing room and I thought as bowlers we came out today and performed pretty well,” he added.

But former Australian players Allan Border and Mike Hussey didn’t take too much of a liking to Kohli’s actions.

The Indian captain was animated on the field and Hussey, as quoted by Macquarie Sports Radio said, ” Kohli is out of control … I don’t like his attitude at the moment.”

Also read: Not seen anyone who is better than Virat Kohli: Michael Vaughan

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen any captain carry on like that,” Border said in an interaction with Fox Sport.

Lyon, who starred with a five-wicket haul said on the wicket, “The wicket seems like it’s starting to play a few more little tricks. We were expecting the cracks to play a little bit more, but with that rain yesterday it probably softened our ball up quite a fair bit. I know as bowlers the ball in cricket terms felt like it had no air left in it, so it lost a little bit of zip off the wicket.

“But we were pretty happy with the way we bowled and we know that come the second dig we can bowl much better than that. So we can take a few lessons off that first innings.”