Australia players were too scared to sledge Virat Kohli, sucked up to India for IPL contracts: Michael Clarke

Former Australia captain Michael Clarke believes the current Australian players “sucked up” to Virat Kohli and India so that their million dollar IPL deals could be protected. He went on to add that this led to Australian cricket becoming ‘soft’ which was never a good sign. “Everybody knows how powerful India are in regards to the financial part of the game, internationally or domestically with the IPL,” Clarke told Big Sports Breakfast.

“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,”Clarke said.

The World Cup-winning captain also added that since a number of Indian superstars were also captains of their respective IPL franchises, Australian players did not want to sledge them.