Former Australian World Cup-winning captain Michael Clarke and once Indian regular ODI cricketer Robin Uthappa both have defended the Indian skipper Virat Kohli’s unsatisfied behaviour in the second T20I against the hosts Australia.

On Friday (November 23) during the second T20I between Australia and India at Melbourne, Indian skipper Virat Kohli was unhappy to continue the game in rain. Everything was fine till the 18th over when the hosts Australia was batting on 122/7 after losing the toss.

In the middle of the 19th over, the rain started. With each ball progress in that over, there was no sign to stop the rain. Indian skipper Virat Kohli was wishing to stop the game in the middle of that over as it can lead to an injury and also the ball was getting harder to grip.

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However, the on-field umpires felt that the match can be progressed in that rain. So they continued the game until the final ball of that over. Kohli was unhappy in that period and he was arguing continuously for that with the on-field umpires. After the completion of the 19th over, umpires decided to stop the game due to that rain. On their return, Kohli had a talk with both the on-field umpires for a few minutes on this matter.

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Observing the condition form a television studio, the match commentator Clarke said, “I don’t blame Virat here at all.” Clarke’s partner Robin Uthappa also backed the Indian skipper Kohli for that behaviour.

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When the game was stopped, Australia was batting on 132/7 in 19 overs. The match was very close to restarting several times, even sometimes the fielders and batsmen just started to walk on the ground, but always the rain returned unconvincingly and stopped the game without starting the second innings.

Talking about the several times restart, at first, Australia was coming to complete their innings by playing the last over when the rain returned once again. After that, India got the several DLS revised targets like 137 runs in 19 overs, 90 runs in 11 overs and 46 runs in 5 overs respectively but every time rain returned very soon and India even failed to start their innings too. In the end, the match was abandoned and Australia has stayed with the 1-0 lead in this three-match T20I series, who won the first T20I at Brisbane by just four runs (DLS method).