HOBART, April 9: The Australian cricket team avoids provoking �any fight� with Virat Kohli, concedes Test skipper Tim Paine but he also asserts that it�s a strategy to keep the Indian captain�s bat quiet, not a ploy to save IPL contracts, as claimed by his predecessor Michael Clarke.
Paine rejected Clarke�s claims that there was a phase in Australian cricket when the side �sucked up� to Kohli to land fat deals with IPL franchises.
�I certainly didn�t notice too many people being that nice to Virat or not trying to get him out or anything like that,� Paine told ESPNCricinfo.
�I�m not sure who was going easy on him; we certainly had a thing where we didn�t want to provoke any fight with him because we think that�s when he plays at his best,� he said.
India are scheduled to tour Australia from October, 2020 to January, 2021 to play four Tests, three One-day Internationals and three Twenty20 International matches. � PTI
