Cummins clarifies remarks on Kohli

SYDNEY: Australia fast bowler Pat Cummins has said that his comments predicting that Virat Kohli won’t score a hundred on India’s tour of Australia later this year were more wishful thinking than an outright challenge.

Earlier this month, Cummins was quoted as saying, “My brave, bold prediction; I’d say I think Virat Kohli is not going to get a hundred and we’re going to knock them off over here.”

His comments made headlines all over the world and were perceived as a challenge issued to the India star, who has a good Test record in Australia with five hundreds spread across two tours. However, Cummins has now cleared the air.

“I was surprised by the traction the comments I made about Virat got,” he told the Cricket Australia website. “I was almost trying to do the opposite to the way they were perceived. I was trying to pay him a huge compliment and say that my big wish list for the summer was he doesn’t score a hundred.”

The 25-year-old called Kohli a “gun batsman” and was all praise for him. “He’s obviously so important to the team and is such a gun batsman, so him not scoring runs would go a long way to helping us win,” he said.

“But I certainly didn’t mean to say he’s no good because I couldn’t hold him in higher regard.”

“It was just off the cuff. It was a pretty relaxed interview to say I’d love for him not to score runs, like I’d love any international player to not score runs against us.”

Kohli scored four centuries during India’s previous tour to Australia in 2014-15, including one in each innings of the first Test in Adelaide. While Cummins was not part of the Australian squad then, he along with Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood, both of whom did bowl to Kohli on that tour, are likely to form the Australian pace attack.

Cummins said the Australian bowlers will steer clear of getting caught up in a war of words ahead of the summer. “I don’t think we’ll be calling out anyone this summer. We’ll just hopefully take plenty of wickets and the other team will hopefully not score many runs,” he said.

Calling Kohli “a really passionate player” he added, “He’s similar to Steve Smith for us, he really gets himself into the contest and tries to find a way to fire up the bowlers. They seem to use that as a way to get the best out of themselves and I think that feeds off into the other players in the team as well.”

“The captain and the best batsman is always the prized wicket and I’m sure it won’t be any different this summer.” —