After Test skipper, Tim Paine, his deputy, Pat Cummins has also commented against the allegations made by former Australia skipper Michael Clarke over the less competitive nature of the Australian players during India’s 2018-19 tour Down Under. Cummins defended the accusation by saying that the players were preferring to play ‘less aggressively’ ever since the ball-tampering scandal which dented the image of Australia’s cricketing fabric.

Clarke gathered a lot of attention after blaming the Australian players that they didn’t sledged the Indian players in a bid to get some lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL) contracts. He feels hence, the Australians ‘sucked up’ to Kohli & his men.

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Talking to BCC about the same, Cummins said, “I think probably a bigger factor was six months before leading into that Indian series the media and everyone commentating on the Aussie cricket team were pretty clear in their direction in the way they wanted the Aussies team to go and that was playing a little bit less aggressively out on the field.”

Pat Cummins was bought for a humongous price of ₹15. 5 crore. However, he also felt that some players might have harbored thoughts about Clarke’s assumption that they “sucked up to” Indian skipper Kohli in fear of losing out on IPL paychecks.

Cummings exclaimed, “I’d say that would have been a bigger factor than trying to win or lose friends out on the cricket field. But you never know, that might have been a factor for some players.”

Earlier, Australia skipper Paine also rubbished Clarke’s claims, saying the Australian cricket team has decided to avoid any banter with Kohli as part of their strategy to keep the Indian captain’s bat quiet and not a ploy to save IPL contracts.

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As per the quotes in ESPNCricinfo, Paine said, “I’m not sure who was going easy on him; 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.”