When Virat Kohli was fined for showing middle finger to the SCG crowd in BGT 2011/12
During the Border Gavaskar Trophy 2011/12, Virat Kohli was fined over his middle-finger gesture to the crowd. The incident took place on the second day of the second Test fixture in Sydney, which saw the home team win by an innings and 68 runs.
Batting first, India were bundled out for a meager score of 199, with MS Dhoni (57*) as the major contributor. Thereafter, Australia finished the first day on 116/3. Then, they dominated the proceedings on Day 2, adding 366 runs to their overnight score and losing only a solitary wicket. Certainly, the visitors had a long day in the field and had to face the wrath of the home crowd.
Stationed near the fence, Kohli faced abuse from the crowd for his mother and sister. As per him, this was the worst sledge he ever faced during his nearly four-year career. Riled by the abusive spectators, the star batter responded with a middle-finger gesture.
As a result, match referee Ranjan Madugalle laid the level two charge on Kohli on the next morning and was fined 50% of his match fee. Despite pleading guilty to the referee, he claimed he had been provoked. Meanwhile, the right-hander returned with scores of 23 & 9 in the game.
After the incident, England batter Kevin Pietersen took to X (formerly Twitter) to mention Kohli and shared that a similar incident happened with him in Australia as well. Kohli responded by slamming the crowd for testing his patience, which eventually resulted in an obscene gesture.
Check out the exchange between Kohli and Pietersen in 2012 below:
Virat Kohli had a bad start to IND vs BAN Test series
The 35-year-old recently featured in the first fixture of the two-match Test series against Bangladesh in Chennai. In the first innings, Virat Kohli was dismissed by Hasan Mahmud for 6, as he tried to chase a full delivery outside the off-stump.
The second innings saw him failing to convert his start and was trapped LBW by Mehidy Hasan Miraz for 17. However, the UltraEdge later revealed a spike, indicating an inside edge from Kohli.
Kohli will return to action for the second and final Test fixture of the series, starting from September 27 in Kanpur. It will be interesting to see if the veteran batter can end the series on a high ahead of the Test series against New Zealand.