‘They were too scared,’ Michael Clarke on why Australian players ‘sucked up’ to Virat Kohli

Former Australia captain Michael Clarke believes the current Australian players “sucked up” to Virat Kohli and India so that their million dollar IPL deals could be protected. He went on to add that this led to Australian cricket becoming ‘soft’ which was never a good sign. “Everybody knows how powerful India are in regards to the financial part of the game, internationally or domestically with the IPL,” Clarke told Big Sports Breakfast.

“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,”Clarke said.

The World Cup-winning captain also added that since a number of Indian superstars were also captains of their respective IPL franchises, Australian players did not want to sledge them.

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“Name a list of ten players and they are bidding for these Australian players to get into their IPL team,” he said.

“The players were like: “I’m not going to sledge Kohli, I want him to pick me for Bangalore so I can make my $1 million US for my six weeks”.”

As per Clarke, this behaviour did not allow Australia to be assertive and took away the ruthless nature that had characterised Australian cricket teams for decades.

“I feel like that’s where Australia went through that little phase where our cricket become a little bit softer or not as hard as we’re accustomed to seeing.”