What Virat Kohli did with the shoulder bump is simply not cricket: Sunil Gavaskar

Sunil Gavaskar criticised Virat Kohli's on-field antics during the recently concluded Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25. According to the former India cricketer, Kohli put his team under additional pressure with his actions.

Kohli did not have a memorable time with the bat as he scored just 190 runs from nine innings at an average of 23.75. He was dismissed eight times during the five-match series, all of them being deliveries outside the off-stump. The former India captain also hogged the limelight after he shoulder-bumped Sam Konstas during the first session of the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne. Kohli was fined 20 per cent of his match fee and also handed one demerit point. He also tried to get under the Australian fans' skins during the final day of the fifth Test in Sydney by making the sandpaper gesture.

Gavaskar claimed that there was no need for Kohli to get involved with Konstas and he also described the move to rile up the crowd as pointless. The cricketer-turned-commentator opined that reacting to jeers from the spectators does more harm than good for the players.

"What Kohli did with the shoulder bump is simply not cricket. Indians are not shy to retaliate if provoked, but here the provocation was simply not there. The one thing that players learn with experience is that it’s futile to try and get back at the crowds, who have come to have a good time, so booing players is never personal but just a way to entertain themselves. To react to that doesn’t do the player any good, and does more harm," Gavaskar wrote in a column for The Sydney Morning Herald.

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Gavaskar went on to say that by reacting to the jeers from the spectators, Kohli put his teammates under pressure by bringing them into the firing line. The 74-year-old also lashed out at his insipid performances with the bat during the series.

"Kohli must understand that whatever he does to react to the crowd actually puts more pressure on his teammates, who also then become targets of the spectators. With his continued failures to avoid nibbling at the deliveries around the off-stump, he failed to make the contribution that could have boosted the total," said Gavaskar.

India lost the Border-Gavaskar Trophy by a 1-3 margin. Their next red-ball assignment is a five-match tour of England in June.