Recently, Michael Clarke’s statements regarding the Australian cricket team being less aggressive and going against their nature while playing against the Indian cricket team. In an interview, Clarke revealed that he feels that the cricketers are scared of sledging Virat Kohli because of IPL. He had said:
“Everybody knows how powerful India are in regards to the financial part of the game, internationally or domestically with the IPL. I feel that Australian cricket, and probably every other team over a little period, went the opposite and actually sucked up to India. They were too scared to sledge Kohli or the other Indian players because they had to play with them in April,“
His statements didn’t go down well with many cricketers including the Australian Test skipper, Tim Paine, who slammed the cricketer for his remarks. Now after Tim Paine, Australian cricketer Pat Cummins has opened up about the controversial remarks of Michael Clarke.
Recently, in an interview, Pat Cummins said that Australians are now not that aggressive and the sudden change is because of the ball-tampering scandal, that had dented the image of cricket in the country. He revealed:
“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,”
He added:
“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.”
