Irfan Pathan has lashed out at Virat Kohli for making physical contact with Sam Konstas on Day 1 of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) 2024-25 fourth Test. He added that veteran players like Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist used to sledge him a lot when he was a youngster but they never touched him. Notably, Konstas scored 60 runs off 65 deliveries on debut as Australia posted 311/6 in their first innings in Melbourne on Thursday, December 26 and Virat Kohli shoulder barged him during an over break as well.
During a discussion on Star Sports, Pathan said, “Stay away from contact. You cannot contact a player. You can show aggression and support your players. He is a 19-year-old boy. When we were 19-year-old boys, Hayden, Gilchrist and all used to make a lot of noise from behind but never touched us. So you could have avoided that on the cricket field. I have a question. If it had been Steve Smith, who is Australia’s senior player, and one of our 19-year-old boys was making his debut, and he had come and pushed like that, would we have liked it? We would have not liked it at all. Same thing.”
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Irfan Pathan also stated that the contact was avoidable because Virat Kohli had changed his angle of approach as well. He said that it’s better if the aggression is shown by staying far. In the same discussion, Sunil Gavaskar also backed Irfan Pathan’s views.
“I totally agree because this was not required at all. Even if we are on a busy pedestrian road, if someone comes from the other side, we move aside slightly. No one will consider you small if you move aside, that your status fell because you moved aside. I feel the match referee will definitely call both of them and then decide what needs to be done. Whenever body contact has happened, the ICC have taken strict action. It happened between Gautam Gambhir and Shane Watson as well. I feel Gambhir was probably banned for one game there. We just hope that Virat Kohli is not banned because of what happened,” Sunil Gavaskar concluded.
