Kohli on Fingergate incident: During an interview with Wisden Cricket Monthly, the Indian captain recalled an incident which had brought him bad reputation.
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Within a decade of playing international cricket, Indian captain Virat Kohli has already entered numerous record books. From batting to captaining the team, Kohli has already surpassed many greats of the game. Moreover, the pace with which he is moving ahead, he is undoubtedly in line for breaking several all-time records.
That being said, records, numbers and victories are not the only features of Kohli’s game. His on-field presence also gives you a chance of witnessing many other intriguing gestures, some of which are for his teammates, some for the opposition and some for the audiences as well. There is no hiding to the fact that the now 29-year old entered the international arena as a 19-year old aggressive lad from Delhi.
In his formative years, Kohli was often seen taking a go at the opposition players. It was as if the term ‘holding back’ did not exist in his dictionary. One of his infamous incident-cum-controversy came during India’s tour of Australia in 2011-12 when Kohli was spotted signaling his middle finger to a section of crowd at the boundary.
It happened during the second Test of India’s tour of Australia in 2011-12 when Kohli was found at the wrong of side of things. “The one thing I remember most is when I’d had enough of the Australian crowd at Sydney and I just decided to flick a (middle) finger at them,” he said.
“The match referee (Ranjan Madugalle) called me to his room the next day and I’m like, ‘What’s wrong?’ He said, ‘What happened at the boundary yesterday?’ I said, ‘Nothing, it was a bit of banter’. Then he threw the newspaper in front of me and there was this big image of me flicking on the front page and I said, ‘I’m so sorry, please don’t ban me!’ I got away with that one. He was a nice guy, he understood I was young and these things happen”, he further added.
What might appear wrong to some people, Kohli has no guilt of his on-field acts in the past. “I really laugh at a lot of the things I did when I was younger but I’m proud that I did not change my ways because I was always going to be who I am and not change for the world or for anyone else. I was pretty happy with who I was”, he was quoted.
