Justin Langer feels Australia should not celebrate dismissals as Virat Kohli does

It seems the Australians, who once spat on the opponents’ face more than they talked, have taken quite a few steps back in their approach. Ever since the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa earlier this year that churned Australian cricket like never before, the cricket powerhouse’s ‘anything for a win’ attitude has been exposed and a revision became necessary for the side which has struggled to be as dominant in the game. They now conduct the business with a pinch of restraint.

Australian coach Justin Langer, who was not known to be as mercurial as some of his colleagues during his playing days, recently said that if the home team was to celebrate fall of wickets as Indian captain Virat Kohli did, they would be considered “the worst blokes in the world”.

Langer’s suggestion that there was a “fine line” between a celebration and being on the top came after Kohli said in a recent interview to former Australian wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist that he did not know where to draw the line when he first toured Australia in 2012. It may be mentioned here that Kohli earned flak on that tour for pointing the objectionable finger to the crowd near the fence.

Justin Langer’s advice

“He’s a superstar of the game and he’s the captain. We’ve talked for as long as I can remember in Australian cricket teams that you want to keep the opposition captain down as much as possible. You love seeing that passion in sport,” Fox Cricket quoted Langer, a former Australia opener, as saying.

“Mind you I think if we did that at the moment we’d be the worst blokes in the world. It’s a fine line isn’t it? That’s the truth of it, but I love seeing the passion, that is great passion. But as I said there’s a fine line,” he added.

On the 22 yards, meanwhile, both the teams were engaged in a tug-of-war. After Cheteshwar Pujara pulled out India from dire straits with an attractive century, the Indian bowlers came to the party to bowl Australia out for 235 to give the visitors a slim margin of 15 runs.

The visitors’ batters had a far better start to their second innings as the openers put up a partnership of 50 above Murali Vijay fell for 18. Pujara joined KL Rahul who was in his 40s and India were 68 for 1 at the time of writing this report, taking the overall lead to 83 runs.

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