Kohli and Dhawan fight marred the Brisbane chase for India, says report

Newspaper report says the Delhi boys had a flare-up with Kohli accusing his teammate of faking an elbow injury to avoid facing the pace bowlers.

A verbal altercation between two India players may have unsettled the tourists as they lost the Brisbane Test to Australia.

Explaining India’s collapse in the second innings of the second Test at Brisbane, captain MS Dhoni had hinted at “unrest” and “lack of communication” in the dressing room.

The “unrest”, according to a report in the Hindustan Times, was a “fight” between Delhi boys Virat Kohli and Shikhar Dhawan.

Dhoni was referring to the events after Dhawan was injured during practice. Because of this, Kohli had to rush to start the day’s play with Cheteshwar Pujara. At the same net session, Kohli was injured, too.

Dhawan was the overnight not out batsman on the third day, but reportedly informed his inability to take the field with just seven minutes left, something which Dhoni referred to as “lack of communication” without giving details in the post-match conference.

Kohli looked out of place and fell for just one run (11 balls) to Mitchell Johnson, and lashed out at Dhawan on returning to the dressing room, according to the newspaper report.

The left-hander hit back saying he did not “fake” injury and took “pride in playing for the country”, the report quoted sources as saying about what happened in the dressing room.

Team director Ravi Shastri had to step in and calm things down, the report said. Dhawan came out to bat after the fall of the sixth wicket and top-scored for the team with 81 runs. India were bowled out for 224 in the second innings, setting a small target of 128 for Australia.