Indian captain Virat Kohli and Bangladeshi players don’t seem to share a cordial relationship given how aggressive and verbal the Delhi player was in his U19 days. Most of the Bangladeshi players who have played with him since youth days, admit they were sledged by Kohli more than once.
Bangladesh Test opener Imrul Kayes is one of them and in an interview with teammate Tamim Iqbal revealed how he had to complain to Tamim about Kohli’s constant sledging to make him stop verbally assaulting him.
During a chat session on Cricfrenzy FB Live, Kayes revealed that he knows Kohli since 2007 from their days at the Australia academy. He said, “When we met in international cricket for the first time in 2011, Kohli sledged me. I was taken aback. I had spent one whole month with him, but here he was sledging me.”
Kayes then said, he had to take the matter to Tamim Iqbal, who was senior to him and Iqbal gave it back to Kohli verbally, to make him stop.
“I did not tell him anything, but went and told Tamim. Tamim then gave it back to him, Tamim does these things well. He can be aggressive on the field,” said Imrul.
He also mentioned that after that instance, Kohli has never behaved badly with him. “Kohli has never behaved badly with me after that. In the Fatullah Test, in the Test series last year, Kohli was abusing almost everyone from our team, but he didn’t say a word to me,” he added.
However, Kayes said that off the field, Kohli is a great person to be with. “Kohli is a player of a different level. For us, it just feels nice that he remembers us,” Kayes said.
