Michael Clarke felt Australia cricketers were hesitant in sledging their Indian counterparts over a period of time.
See Also: "Just being nice to someone doesn't get you a place in IPL", Laxman hits back at Clarke
Clarke's comment that they "sucked up" to Kohli and his men, however, didn't go down well with the limited-overs skipper Aaron Finch, who reminded the former Aussie captain of India’s strength in that series.
"They were obviously not being nice to impress because they wanted an IPL contract. There is nothing about it. If you ask to anyone playing on the field they will tell you that it was very very tough. It was played in right spirit but it was very tough. Not sure where it was coming from."
"The team was going through a transition and there were a lot of players trying to find their way in international cricket and doing that against India. Talking as a batsman, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammad Shami, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin, you can't hide against that kind of attack."
"Micheal told we were being nice but people were just trying to find their own game, they were trying best way to play Test cricket. But everyone is entitle to their views, he might have seen something from the outside which we didn't see from inside," Finch told Sports Tak.
Notably, Team India were undefeated in all three series on that Australian trip. While Kohli and company clinched the four-Test series 2-1, they won the three-ODI series with the same margin and the T20I series ended in 1-1 draw.
The current Australian Test captain Tim Paine wasn’t too happy with Clarke's comment either.
Earlier, Paine had reiterated there was a genuine effort from his side not to engage in too much of sledging with Kohli, because that could come back to haunt given the great batsman he is, but it was never about salvaging their IPL deals, as claimed by Clarke.
"I'm not sure who was going easy on him; we certainly had a thing where we didn't want to provoke any fight with him because we think that's when he plays at his best," Paine had told ESPNCricinfo.
"But anytime our guys go out and play a Test match for Australia, they'll be giving their absolute all and I'm pretty sure they're not thinking about an IPL contract when they're running in, bowling to Virat."