Kohli unimpressed by "pampering" Aussies

Virat Kohli has revealed the glaring midday Adelaide light was the primary reason he was struck flush on the helmet by the first ball he faced in last year’s Test series, and that he found the subsequent overt concern the Australian fielders showed for his welfare “unnecessary”.

Last December’s opening Test between Australia and India at the Adelaide Oval was played in the heavy shadow of Phillip Hughes’s tragically premature death two weeks earlier, and the fear of batsmen being injured by short-pitched bowling was real and raw.

In his first match as India’s Test captain, Kohli went out to bat just minutes before lunch on the third day with his team 2-111 and more than 400 runs in arrears and was greeted by a shoulder-high bouncer from Mitchell Johnson into which the batsman instinctively ducked.

The ball crashed into the badge on the front of Kohli’s protective helmet and he was immediately surrounded by Australian fielders, the clearly rattled bowler and both umpires who were urgently checking his health and wellbeing as ghosts of the recent past rose large. 

Watch: Johnson badges Kohli

But Kohli claims the incident was triggered by a trick of the light more so than an unplayable delivery, and explains the reason he was so intent on shrugging off inquiries as to his health was because he is strongly opposed to the “pampering” of rival players on the field.

“I was pretty disappointed with myself that I got hit first ball of the series on the helmet,” Kohli said with a self-deprecating laugh in his recent interview with ESPN-Cricinfo’s ‘The Cricket Monthly’.

“It was because the (Adelaide) dressing room was proper shade and outside it was very sunny and bright, and the wicket was shiny as well. I went in with an over or so to go for lunch.

“The first ball he (Johnson) banged in, I thought it was short. It was just in front of the halfway mark on the pitch.

“But the ball just did not bounce at all. It kept on sliding and came towards me and I just kept my head down.

“Luckily I did not sway away. And the ball got me bang on the badge on the helmet.

“I was stunned. But I don't like that sort of comforting, where players are coming and asking me if I am okay or not.

“If I am not okay I would be lying on the ground. I am not going to show to someone that I am in pain.

“I don't like that sort of unnecessary pampering because you are going out there to bat alone eventually.

“You have to take a few hits.

“I am glad I got hit on the helmet first ball. That literally opened my eyes and I was concentrating much better than probably I would have in that particular game.

“After that I decided that whenever he (Johnson) is going to bowl short, I am going to take him on. I am not going to back out.”

Image Id: ~/media/6E6A5991B9FC42CEBBD79F1CDA804F55

Players and officials comfort Kohli after the blow // Getty Images

In an interview with cricket.com.au during India’s World Cup campaign earlier this year, Kohli spoke about his captaincy philosophy and his belief that it was his performances rather than his words that would lift his team from their current position of third on the world Test rankings.

But he also concedes he had primed himself for the mental and verbal battle he had anticipated the Australians would wage last summer and that he was not prepared to sit back quietly without responding when the home team went hard at his team and his players.

Kohli was fined 30 per cent of his match fee for his involvement in a verbal exchange with Australia batsman Steve Smith in Adelaide, and drew headlines in Melbourne after a volatile’s day play in which the 26-year-old scored a memorable 169.

Kohli used his end-of-day media conference to goad the Australians further, pointing out that he liked riling them because they found it so hard to remain calm but adding pointedly “I respect quite a few of them but someone who doesn’t respect me I’ve got no reason to respect him”. 

Watch: Kohli's Adelaide press conference

In his interview with ‘The Cricket Monthly’, the combative Kohli explained he does not subscribe to the conventional dressing room view that inflammatory remarks re-published in the media can come back to burn you on the field.

“I knew it was going to be difficult,” Kohli said of the war of words that he expected in Australia last summer.

“I knew there would be a lot of mental games fought, a lot of words, a lot of talk.

“As a subcontinent player, as an Indian player, the general feeling has been that we are not supposed to talk like this.

“I do not connect to that, because if an opposition is doing it and they are still performing, there has to be a disconnect between talking and doing.

“It is not as if I have said something in a press conference and then I will go out to bat thinking, "Oh, I have said something, now what if I don't do well?"

“Eventually I have a bat in hand and the guy is running in with a ball in hand.

“He is not running in to smash that statement in my face.

“So if a team is willing to play the mental battle, you should be good enough to tackle that. And eventually it is a battle of skills when you go in the field.

“I don't mix the two.

“Off the field I am countering what is being said.

“Why should we succumb to the mental pressure or mental games the opposition plays with us?”

Kohli identified Johnson as a key component of Australia’s Test strategy and, having endured a poor previous series in the UK where he was unable to counter England swing bowler James Anderson, had changed his batting stance to take him beyond the crease to counter the ball’s movement in last summer’s Test campaign.

His ploy to take the fight to Johnson saw him post a memorable last-day century in the Adelaide Test, and it spread to other members of the Indian team with Ajinkya Rahane following his skipper’s lead as they shared a 250-plus fourth-wicket partnership during the third Test at the MCG. 

Watch: Kohli marches to MCG century

Kohli claims it was a timely and totemic example of the mindset he wants his team to take into the Test arena now that he has formally inherited the captaincy from the naturally more conservative M S Dhoni.

“I figured out teams win Test matches because they dominate in certain sessions,” Kohli said in his interview.

“We are taught to leave the ball outside off and play the correct way, and we end up scoring too slowly at times.

“Teams are moving on. Teams are playing aggressive cricket. Teams are dominating sessions.

“They give themselves more chances of bowling the opposition out because they are scoring 150-plus runs in a session.

“So I thought, why not go and play aggressively, and once it comes off that would set the tone for the series.”