Australia’s limited-overs captain Aaron Finch is expecting his India counterpart Virat Kohli to be verbal during the tour Down Under but doesn’t expect him to sledge.
Australian cricket is under a revamp after an independent review into the team and organisational culture accused the country’s “arrogant” cricket board of having played a part in the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa earlier this year.
Kohli has said in two of his press conferences prior to the start of the series that his team will also not engage in sledging or abuse unless provoked by the opposition.
“If the opposition is aggressive towards you, then you have to counter it. We have never been the team that started anything,” he said on Tuesday in Brisbane ahead of the first Twenty20 International.
“On a personal level, I don’t find the need to go and find these things anymore,” Kohli had said before departing for Australia. “I have enough belief in my ability, I can play without a reason to pump myself up.”
