Michael Clarke believes that Australian cricketers became softer against Indians especially because of the Indian Premier League. He also added the Aussie cricketers were even scared of even sledging Virat Kohli.
Clarke says
A number of Australian players signed a contract with different IPL franchises. According to Michael Clarke that was the reason for the Australian team sucking up to India. “Everybody knows how powerful India are in regards to the financial part of the game, internationally or domestically with the IPL. I feel that Australian cricket, and probably every other team over a little period, went the opposite and actually sucked up to India. They were too scared to sledge Kohli or the other Indian players because they had to play with them in April.”
Australia not sledging Kohli
He further claimed that the Australians do not sledge Indian captain because of the lucrative IPL deal. Kohli is also the skipper of Royal Challengers Bangalore for long and he does have a saying in team selection and auction as well. Referring to that Kohli said, “Name a list of 10 players and they are bidding for these Australian players to get into their IPL team. The players were like: ‘I’m not going to sledge Kohli, I want him to pick me for Bangalore so I can make my $1 million US for my six weeks’.”
Earlier Kohli had got involved in heated conversations with Australian players in the past. The 2017 Australia’s tour of India saw Steve Smith consulting the dressing room for a DRS call. In fact, Kohli had mentioned that Australian players were not good friends anymore post the series. ‘you will not hear me say that ever again’, was what he was heard saying.
Still, Clarke said, “I feel like that’s where Australia went through that little phase where our cricket became a little bit softer or not as hard as we’re accustomed to seeing.”
Stay updated with all the cricketing action, follow Cricadium on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram
