Ravi Ashwin and KL Rahul illustrate Virat Kohli's on-field aggression

Virat Kohli, the charismatic India skipper has a vivid history of using the innecessant tactic of sledging. The 30-year old is one of the most confrontational of the skippers in the 21st century at the very least. However, in recent times, even his teammates have come out and stated the competitve nature of Kohli. KL Rahul and Ravi Ashwin are the most recent of the lot.

KL Rahul, who was facing Chris Morris in South Africa illustrated how the Indian skipper began sledgingthe South African pacer, especially when Morris was in full swing. “He was so fired up from there. He was like, ‘Yeah! What a shot?’. He started sledging him (Morris). He’s like ‘take that’ and all that. I was like ‘Bro, relax. He is bowling very quick. He’s bowled a half volley, let me get through this over,” Rahul said.

Ravi Ashwin went next when he was batting and Kohli was putting a few words in the ears of the bowlers from the non-strikers’ end as well. Ashwin also went on to add that he had never faced anyone quite so intense as Rabada in his batting career.

“He was bowling a good spell. Every time he saw me, I don’t know what it was, it felt like he was charging a little bit more and I felt like he was bowling rockets. I haven’t faced anybody quicker than Rabada in my career so far.”

The tiff with Dean Elgar

Ashwin went on to add that Kohli was motivating him all the way through when the former was batting as well.

“So I went bang-bang-bang! I got three boundaries together. And now Virat is fired up because I have taken Rabada on and hit him for three 4s and he is like, “yeah, keep going Ash! Keep going!” and all that. Dean Elgar just walked to say something, I think he wanted to say something to me and Virat just went in between and said, ‘You get on, you’re not like even hitting a single ball, you’re getting all your runs off the edge and all that. Dean Elgar was like, he just shut his mouth and went back.”

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