Indian skipper Virat Kohli was engaged in a tension flared verbal duel with Australian captain Tim Paine in a Jasprit Bumrah over during Day 4 of the second Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test in Perth.

The incident really got everyone's serious notice only when wicketkeeper-batsman Paine sledged back through the stump mic referring of Virat to opening batsman Murali Vijay, saying, "Murali, I know he's your captain but you can't seriously like him as a bloke."

But now, responding over the matter batting legend Sunil Gavaskar has said that the Indian team are no saints as he critically claimed that they were the ones who actually began the sledging war on this tour.

"Tim Paine is not in the Indian dressing room... So how does he know Vijay does not like Kohli?. These are the kind of things which are called gamesmanship. We have not been saints either," Gavaskar told India Today, "Way back in 2014 when Australia were down with the tragic death of Phillip Hughes, we started it. They were too shocked in the first Test and we started it."

"In a situation like this, we will always lose. Australia are used to playing like that, we are not. It's not in our DNA to play cricket like that. You also have to take into account if everyone on the team can take it. Even over here, we have started it," he added.

While the great man decided to make a serious claim over the visitors, fast bowler Josh Hazlewood said that it took place in good spirits between the passionate Virat and admirable Paine.

"I think it was all good fun, it’s quite competitive out there as you know and there’s going to be words from time to time but it was all in good spirits," Hazlewood had earlier said during the press conference after play on Day 4, "I don’t think we read too much into it, we go about our work as we see fit and the Indians can do what they like."

"We control what we control and our behaviour is what we control. We’ll worry about that and let everything else take care of itself."