Tim Paine Says Not Provoking Virat Kohli Part of Plan to Keep Him From Scoring Big

Australian cricket team didn't want to unnecessarily provoke Virat Kohli but his predecessor Michael Clarke's claims of players being scared to sledge the Indian captain in order to protect their IPL deals is far from the truth, said current Test skipper Tim Paine. (More Cricket News)

Paine rubbished Clarke's claims that his team had "sucked up" to Kohli in order to land fat deals with IPL franchises, calling it a tactical decision not to engage Kohli into verbal duel during the 2018-19 series but there was no other motivation.

"I certainly didn't notice too many people being that nice to Virat or not trying to get him out or anything like that," Paine told ESPNcricinfo.