Picture Credit: Twitter
Former Indian skipper Virat Kohli hogged a lot of limelight during the fifth Test match against England for all the wrong reasons. While Kohli's struggle with the bat continued in both innings of the Test match, he didn't shy away from getting involved in a heated exchange with England batter Jonny Bairstow. Notably, both the batters exchanged unlikely words on Day 3 of the Test match, which became the talk of the town.
Apart from Bairstow, Kohli was also seen having a heated chat with Alex Lees while teams were walking off the field for tea. English media didn't take the incidents lightly as they portrayed the Indian batter as a 'villain' in most of the articles and blamed him for going over the board to express his frustration with his team's performance.
Post-match, George Dobell, a renowned cricket reporter shared a picture from an article where Virat Kohli was seen celebrating Alex Lees' wicket by running over the pitch on which players are not meant to step on. Dobell took a sly dig at the Virat, by writing, “An interesting place to celebrate the wicket of Alex Lees."
In the latest development, Former West Indian cricketer Tino Best has backed the Indian cricketer and claimed that English media has problems with everyone who is brown, black and bold. He wrote, "anyone who’s BOLD and brown or black y’all always got a Dammmm problem with anyone who challenges y’all its an issue." Many Twitter users including George Dobell took offence at racial allegations made by Best as the English reporter commented, "C’mon, Tino. You know me much better than that.”
Best later admitted that he was not pointing fingers at Dobell but stated that 'Virat Kohli is not a thug, instead modern-day icon.' He wrote, "For sure George, you’re a real one but the others always reaching, from the English commentators etc. Tell your mate that Virat isn’t a thug he’s a modern-day Icon, simple. But then again he isn’t English so we would get these types of Articles (to) make them grovel."