Former Australia captain Michael Clarke had claimed that Australia players did not sledge Virat Kohli in fear of losing out on lucrative IPL contracts. However, Dean Jones, former Australia batsman rubbished his claims and mentioned that it is not a good idea to upset players like Kohli and Dhoni.

"I will tell you the reason why they went quiet on Virat. Because we went quiet when Viv Richards came out to bat. We went quiet on Javed Miandad, on Martin Crowe. And there is a reason behind that -- You don't upset the bear, you don't upset Virat Kohli or MS Dhoni because this is what they like - a confrontation," Dean Jones said during an interaction on Sport screen YouTube page.

T20 World Cup isn’t going to happen in Australia this year, reckons Dean Jones

Clarke had accused Australian players of sucking up to Kohli during India’s 2-1 win in the four-Test series down under in 2018-19.

"Don't give them any oxygen. But I find this reason about not upsetting Virat because of IPL contracts a bit of rubbish. Is Virat going to stop anyone from playing? That is down to the coaches and managers,” Jones added. Even Australia captain Tim Paine had rubbished Clarke’s claims and had said, "I'm not sure who was going easy on him (Kohli); 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.”

“Who knows what will happen this series and, as we saw in the documentary, there was still quite a lot of heat in some of those games. I certainly wasn't holding back, but again the IPL's not a huge draw for me at the moment, so I had nothing to lose,” Paine added.