Eye on India: Australia rivalry was already fierce, and Virat Kohli has further stoked the flames

By asserting that he had seen Australia seek dressing-room guidance twice while he was batting in the middle, the Indian captain was effectively accusing his opponents of cheating.

Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli celebrates with teammates after the dismissal of unseen Australian captain Steve Smith during the fourth day of the second Test on March 9, 2017. Manjunath Kiran / AShow more

March 11 marked 16 years since Harbhajan Singh took a hat-trick against Australia on the opening day at the Eden Gardens, the most celebrated Test in Indian cricket history. Four days later, he would take 6 for 73 on the final afternoon as India, who had been made to follow on 274 behind, stormed to a famous victory in front of 90,000 delirious fans.

That game ignited one of the modern game’s great rivalries, and also showcased some of the ugliness that’s never far away when two teams clash as equals. In the build-up to the deciding Test in Chennai, which India would go on to win by two wickets to clinch the series, Australian supporters showed this correspondent images of Harbhajan showing them the middle finger.

For more than a decade (he last played a Test against them in 2013), Harbhajan — the Turbanator, as he was dubbed after the 2001 heroics — was a lightning rod for Australian angst. No one got under their skins quite like he did, and he was central to every controversy that erupted between the two sides, including Monkeygate in January 2008 which nearly caused a tour of Australia to be abandoned.

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In the build-up to the ongoing series, nothing got the Australians’ competitive juices flowing quite like his assertion that they would have to play well to lose 3-0. Now, with the series beautifully poised at 1-1 and two to play, it’s another man with Punjabi roots that has riled up the Australians.

Virat Kohli was perfectly within his rights to question Steve Smith’s behaviour after he was dismissed in the second innings in Bangalore. What Smith did — glancing up to the dressing room to check whether he should review the decision — was a clear contravention of the Decision Review System (DRS) protocols. That an international captain would be unaware of the rules is stretching the bounds of credulity, and Smith’s assertion that he had a “brain fade” was far from satisfactory.

Despite having wrapped up a 75-run victory, Kohli was still seething. Unfortunately, his anger then took him on to Conspiracy Street, where as was the case with Monkeygate, conclusive proof is hard to find. By asserting that he had seen Australia seek dressing-room guidance twice while he was batting in the middle — a brief period, since he made only 12 and 15 — the Indian captain was effectively accusing his opponents of cheating.

Cricket Australia responded furiously, though Peter Handscomb’s account – that he advised Smith to look at the coaching staff because of an ignorance of the rules – hardly showed them in the best light. But with the two boards having sensibly decided not to further inflame a volatile situation, Australia’s favourite tabloids have now taken up the gauntlet.

Harbhajan has been temporarily forgotten, with Kohli now cricket’s “biggest bully”, Indian coach Anil Kumble an “agent provocateur”, and Australian players claiming that they would not “sink” to India’s sledging level. This is where you should take an irony break.

Sydney's Daily Telegraph has also reported that Kohli's tantrum following a controversial leg-before decision against him resulted in injury for one of the Australian support staff — "he unleashed an astonishing outburst in the dressing rooms following his dismissal, smashing a Gatorade bottle off a table, where it then rebounded off a television and struck an Australian team official on the leg."

The concerted campaign against Kohli is only likely to backfire. With just 40 innings in the series so far, he hasn’t been a factor with the bat, but his on-field rage had everything to do with India recovering after a poor opening day in Bangalore. The intent he had asked for was palpably missing, perhaps not surprising given that it was India’s 15th Test of an interminably long season.

But with the captain’s oaths turning the air blue, and the players right on the edge, the bowlers and then the batsmen found a route back into the contest, before the genius of R Ashwin gifted India victory with something to spare.

Even before reaching Ranchi, Australia are talking about the surface there with some trepidation. Don’t be surprised if, a generation after Harbhajan, Kohli is at the heart of another come-from-behind series win against the men in baggy green.

Rough road for Dingko

On the eve of the bantamweight final at the Bangkok Asian Games in 1998, Gurbaksh Singh Sandhu, the India team’s coach, was tipped off that Timur Tulyakov, the Uzbek who was favoured to win the bout, was carrying an injury. The Uzbek camp planned to have him come out punching, establish an early lead and then retire. According to the rules in place at the time regarding injuries, that would have given him gold.

But Sandhu and Dingko Singh, a ferocious puncher from Manipur in India’s northeast, had different ideas. It was Dingko that dominated the early exchanges, and by the time Tulyakov retired after the fourth round, the gold was India’s.

Dingko, who had been named Boxer of the Tournament after winning gold at the King’s Cup in Thailand a year earlier, was a last-minute inclusion in the squad, “at no cost to the government”. He had been bizarrely left out before the last-minute summons came. The gold followed.

Still a few months shy of his 20th birthday, that should have been the start of great things for the boxer employed by the Indian Navy. Instead, a hairline fracture in his right hand didn’t heal properly, and Serhiy Danylchenko of the Ukraine outpointed him 14-5 in the first round of the bantamweight competition at the Sydney Olympics. Once tipped to rub shoulders with the likes of Guillermo Rigondeaux, who won bantam gold that summer, Dingko faded away as quickly as he had come into the limelight.

Now 38, he faces a far greater challenge. Three years after having appeared in court, charged with assaulting three women – he is employed as a coach – he is undergoing treatment for liver cancer. In the last few months, 70 per cent of his liver has been surgically removed, and he has dropped more than 25kg in weight.

Having sold his house in Imphal to meet the treatment costs, Dingko is being helped by some like Gautam Gambhir, the former India opening batsman. For the man who made boxing cool long before anyone had heard of Vijender Singh, it’s a long, rough road back.

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