I laughed off ball-tampering allegations, says Virat Kohli

SportsCafe Desk

BySportsCafe Desk,SportsCafe Editor

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Virat Kohli has revealed that he did not know about ball-tampering accusations until recently and said such issues take the focus away from cricket. English tabloid Dailymail had reported that Kohli attempted ball tampering in the Rajkot Test although the ICC rubbished the reports as baseless.

Earlier this week, British tabloid Daily Mail published footage of Virat Kohli applying saliva to the ball during the first Test against England at Rajkot. But the English media’s attempt to portray Kohli in the same light as South African skipper Faf du Plessis backfired after the International Cricket Council(ICC) refused to look into it since the allegations had no credibility to them.

Ahead of the third Test against England at Mohali, Indian skipper Virat Kohli has said that he stays away from reading newspapers to avoid such stories. 

"This (ball-tampering allegations) is just to take focus away from series; to me newspaper article doesn't matter over ICC's decision. I don't read newspapers, was told 5 days later that such things happened, I just laughed it off. Some people are trying to take the focus away from the series — good luck to them. But we’re totally focussed on what we have to do," he told PTI on Friday.

“I think it’s just to take the focus away from the series to be honest. It happened in Australia when South Africa won the series. I’m surprised the issue of what I’ve been told came up in Rajkot but there was no mention until the result in Vizag,” Kohli remarked.

Recently, the ICC has declared South Africa skipper Faf du Plessis guilty of ball-tampering for trying to shine the ball using mint-induced saliva and fined him a full match fees. However the accusations on Kohli will not stand as per ICC regulations which need the opposition team to lodge a formal complaint within five days of the completion of the Test match. With none of the England players or their management bringing up this issue, there has been no action taken by the ICC.

And Kohli had a sharp counter for a Journalist's question when he was asked, “You doing what Du Plessis was doing?”

“What was I doing?” Kohli queried back.

“If I was doing something ICC would have spoken to me,” said Kohli to end any such questions.

Previously India coach Anil Kumble has clarified that the Indian team is not bothered about the subject by saying that it is only the media trying make a “mountain out of a molehill”. Kumble had on Thursday dismissed the allegations saying, "First of all, I don't want to react to any report that is there in the media. As far as I am concerned, neither the umpire nor the match referee ever came to us talking about it. We would certainly not like to give too much wind to the story”.

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