India vs Australia 2017: Brad Hodge issues apology to Virat Kohli for his comments during Dharamshala Test
What's the story?
Former Australian cricketer and current head coach of the Gujarat Lions, Brad Hodge has apologised to Indian skipper Virat Kohli for his comments during the Dharamshala Test.
The 42-year-old took to his Twitter handle to issue the apology for his comments on Kohli, stating that he never intended to cause any harm or criticise anyone and he only meant those words in a light-hearted sense.
In case you didn’t know...
During the fourth and final Test of the series between India and Australia held in Dharamshala, Hodge had questioned Kohli’s commitment to the Indian team, speculating that he might have opted to sit out of the deciding Test of the series to provide time for his injured shoulder to recover ahead of the start of the eight-team League on the 5th of April.
The heart of the matter
In his apology tweet, Hodge backed the fans for their reaction to his comments on Kohli missing the Dharamshala Test, stating that they had every right to feel upset about his words on the star cricketer and in fact, also issued an apology to the Indian public, in general, adding that they had brought him much joy over the years.
Gautam Gambhir, who has played with Kohli both at the national and the international level, slammed Hodge for his comments on Wednesday, stating that for any player, representing his country will always come above playing in a League and that by speaking such words about Kohli, people are only looking to hit the headlines across media forums.
Spinner Ravichandran Ashwin decided to look at this whole ‘apology’ episode on a lighter note, conveying his take on Twitter.
Extra Cover: Gautam Gambhir stands up for Virat Kohli; Brad Hodge makes u-turn
What’s next?
What will be intriguing to see now is whether Kohli has anything to comment on this issue. During the course of the series against Australia, he was quite vocal on several topics, and how he responds to this when asked at a press conference anywhere will be something that everyone will be eagerly looking forward to.
Author’s take
Amidst all the talk of broken friendships and apologies, it is good to see an Australian cricketing fraternity member come out in the open and admit his mistake. It is not the first time in the last few days that it has happened that a fellow countryman of Hodge’s has issued a statement and hopefully, the matter will be put to rest once-and-for-all with this statement.