Former Australian player asks Virat Kohli to retire if he fails to score a century at the MCG
Former Australian pacer Mitchell Johnson has fired shots again at Indian skipper Virat Kohli, asking him to retire if he is unable to score a century in the ongoing Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).
Johnson has been criticising Indian players for sometime now, and this time, he took to Twitter to issue Kohli a challenge as Indians face the Australian heat down under.
The Australian tweeted a photo of a flat road on Twitter, suggesting the nature of the pitch at the MCG. After this post, he received tons of flak from Indian cricket supporters, and he also tried to take a dig at Indian captain Kohli.
"No excuses, I'm not playing. If he doesn't score a hundred plus on this, he should retire." - Mitchell Johnson, 26th December 2018
Johnson has been critical about Kohli's performances, and has even gone on record to say in an interview with Fox Sports that he gets away with poor performances 'due to his stature'.
“Kohli gets away with more than most cricketers simply because he is Virat Kohli and he gets placed on a pedestal but this Test left the Indian captain looking silly."
Kohli and Johnson's on-field rivalry goes back to the Indian-Australian Test series way back in 2014/15 when Johnson threw the ball back at Kohli even when the game had halted in the 83rd over. Johnson quickly apologised but since then the duo have not shared a good space either on the field or off it.
Kohli scored 169 and 54 in the same Test match in the two innings.
India are putting up a great fight at the MCG, with 215 runs on the board and two wickets down at the end of day one.
Opener Hanuma Vihari managed just 8 runs from 66 balls, but his fellow opener Mayank Agarwal put on a good display for the Indian side, scoring 76 runs off 161 balls. Cheteshwar Pujara and Virat Kohli are not out with 68 and 47 runs respectively.
It will be interesting to see whether Virat Kohli scores a hundred as challenged by Mitchell Johnson in this Test.