Former Australia cricketer and coach, Justin Langer revealed the crux of an epic banter between Virat Kohli and Steve Smith. Ahead of Day 4, when Smith and Langer were indulging in a conversation, Kohli walked past and taunted the Aussie superstar by saying 'rubbish dismissal'. Kohli commented on Smith's dismissal against Jadeja on Day 3 when the latter played an uncharacteristic shot and threw his wicket away. Langer revealed that Smith agreed with Kohli's assessment.
"Virat Kohli walked up to Steve Smith and said ‘rubbish shot yesterday’,” Langer revealed during commentary for Channel 7.
"Steve Smith just looked at him. If anyone else would have said it he would have gone ‘whatever’. But he said, “that’s right, it was a rubbish shot’. If 99.9 per cent of the population said that to Steve Smith he would go ‘whatever’. But coming from Virat, one genius to another, he goes ‘OK, fair enough’,” he added.
Smith scored 34 runs in the second innings of the ongoing World Test Championship (WTC) final between Australia and India after registering his 31st Test ton in the first innings of the game.
Earlier, Kohli showered immense praise on Australia's batting maestro Smith and termed him as the best in the current generation. Kohli also said that Smith's consistency with the bat is unmatchable and he has never seen anyone else doing that in the last 10 years.
“Steve Smith, according to me, is the best Test player of this generation. He has displayed that his adaptability is absolutely brilliant. You take any cricketer of this generation... in 85-90 Tests, he has an average of 60 which is quite unbelievable. The consistency and impact with which he scores runs, I haven't seen anyone else doing that in last 10 years. Definitely, Steve Smith, along with Marnus Labuschagne, are their main players in the batting order because they control their batting lineup,” Kohli told Star Sports.
"Smith has always done well against us and he has performed in England. You want to dismiss him as soon as possible because he can have a match-winning impact,” Kohli further added.
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