Virat Kohli’s last dance in Australia

Rather, the home crowd seemed to be asking: “What is wrong with Kohli?” A question Australia had not asked of Kohli for a long time. He got under their skin, he was spiky… spunky. But he backed it up with performances on the field; performances that told of an almost unhinged desire to win. Australia didn’t mind that — they loved the idea of someone coming to their backyard and picking up a fight.

Perhaps the ending (if it indeed is) shouldn’t surprise anyone. For this is how it began all those years ago, when Kohli first toured Australia in 2011/12. We all remember Kohli ‘flip the bird’ at a section of the SCG crowd during the second Test back then. It had led to the 50% docking of his match fee. He had tweeted later that the crowd had said the “worst things” about mothers and sisters.

It was only after scoring his first Test hundred, at the Adelaide Oval in the fourth Test, did he open up.