“Once I wanted to stab Kohli with the stump “- Ed Cowan

The India-Australia series has never been devoid of sledging and India’s tour of Australia in 2015 was no such exception. Virat Kohli had a fabulous dream sojourn where he smashed 692 runs thereby giving the hosts a run for their money. The series is also remembered for “Kohli-Johnson” banter. As it is said, “Sledging is a part of a game and you cannot avoid it”, the series got heated up as it progressed and surged to an extreme level where emotions were hurt.

One of Australia’s promising young openers Ed Cowan opened up to an incident where he once thought to stab the Indian skipper Virat Kohli with the stump. The Aussie opener said to Fox Sports “I had a very sick mum during one of those series and he said something that was inappropriate. Why I make the point of ‘lost in translation’, he said something that was highly inappropriate. A personal matter that was highly sensitive. But he didn’t realise that he’d overstepped the mark until the umpire came over and said — ‘Virat that’s overstepped the mark’ — and once that was said, he took a step back and apologised.But, there was a moment I wanted to pick up the stump and stab him.”

Cowan also expressed his respect towards this one of the modern day great as he said “I’m a huge fan of his cricket. Don’t get me wrong he’s a phenomenal cricketer. I had a little bit of a run-in that was inappropriate when he toured Australia and the umpire had to intervene.We forget that English isn’t their first language. It’s very easy to sit back and say as a player they’re barking something at me that is inappropriate when we don’t try and converse with them in Hindi.”

The recent Border Gavaskar trophy saw the same aggression from both the sides. Sledging continued from both the sides and it is actually good to have sledging to a certain acceptable level, till it does not hurt the emotions.