We love to hate Virat Kohli, but admire his batting: Tim Paine

Tags: India tour of Australia, 2020-21, Australia, India, Virat Kohli, Timothy David Paine

Published on: Nov 15, 2020

Australia’s Test captain Tim Paine has spoken up on his equation with Indian skipper Virat Kohli, stating that the latter is just another player for him. Kohli and Paine were involved in many verbal duels during India’s previous tour to Australia in 2018-19, which India won 2-1.

“I get asked a lot of questions about Virat Kohli, he is just another player to me it does not really bother me. There is not really a relationship there with him to be fair, I see him at the toss and play against him and that’s about it,” Paine said in an interview to ABC Sport.

Paine though added that Kohli is a great player, and while he must be admired for the same, he obviously wouldn’t want the Indian captain to score too many against him.

“With Virat, it is a funny one, we love to hate him but we also love to watch him bat as cricket fans. He certainly is polarising in that type of scenario. We love watching him bat, but we don’t like seeing him score too many runs,” Paine said.

He added that Australia are aggressive in nature, and their attitude remains the same, whether it is Kohli or Ben Stokes. “Australia and India, it is a heated competition and he is obviously a competitive person and so am I. There were a few occasions when we had words, but that wasn’t because he was the captain and I was the captain. It could have been anyone,” Paine said.

“There is always a bit more tension when a player is as good as he is. It’s the same when you play against England, it’s Joe Root or a Ben Stokes. It’s often the best player is the one that your team goes up a little bit, the intensity goes up when the best players in the world come out to the crease,” he further added.

India’s tour of Australia will kick-off with the first of the three ODIs on November 27. The Test series will begin on December 17 at Adelaide. Kohli will return to India after the Day/Night Test for the birth of his first child.

--Renin Wilben

Related News