Former Australia skipper Michael Clarke has alleged that most of the cricketers from his country were so keen on protecting their lucrative IPL contracts that they "sucked up" to India captain Virat Kohli and his teammates over a period of time.
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Acknowledging India’s financial power in cricket, Clarke also claimed that Australia players were hesitant in sledging their Indian counterparts.
"Everybody knows how powerful India are in regards to the financial part of the game, internationally or domestically with the IPL," Clarke told Big Sports Breakfast.
"I feel that Australian cricket, and probably every other team over a little period, went the opposite and actually sucked up to India. They were too scared to sledge Kohli or the other Indian players because they had to play with them in April," he added.
Clarke pointed out that Aussie cricketers’ ruthless on-field persona got compromised because the top-10 draws at the IPL auctions gave an impression that they would never sledge Kohli.
"Name a list of ten players and they are bidding for these Australian players to get into their IPL team," the 2015 World Cup winning captain said.
"The players were like: 'I'm not going to sledge Kohli, I want him to pick me for Bangalore so I can make my $1 million for my six weeks.'"
After the ball-tampering scandal, terms like "elite honesty" were propagated and Clarke felt it was during that time Australian cricket became a little bit softer.
"I feel like that's where Australia went through that little phase where our cricket become a little bit softer or not as hard as we're accustomed to seeing," he said.
Michael Clarke’s came as a surprise for many since India and Australia have played a number of hard-fought and fiery series in the last 10 years.
In particular, Kohli has had a rollercoaster relationship with Aussie players ever since bursting onto the international scene. During the 2014-15 Test series down under and 2017 series at home, the Indian captain had exchanged verbal battles with quite a few Australians.
