Michael Clarke: Australian cricketers’ sucked up’ to Virat Kohli to save IPL contracts

India and Australia have enjoyed some intense rivalries in recent times. Former skipper Michael Clarke now felt that whenever the Australians face India, their eyes would be on the cash rich-Indian Premier League (IPL), which is played every year in India.

Clarke believes that current Australian players were scared too much to ‘sledge’ India captain Virat Kohli to protect their million-dollar contracts with the IPL (Indian Premier League) clubs and instead ‘sucked up’ to them.
  
While talking to Big Sports Breakfast, the World Cup-winning captain said, “Everybody knows how powerful India are in regards to the financial part of the game, internationally or domestically with the IPL.”

“I feel that Australian cricket, and probably every other team over a little period, went the opposite and actually sucked up to India. They were too scared to sledge Kohli or the other Indian players because they had to play with them in April,” added Clarke.

Clarke makes these comments months after several Australians fetched record deals in the IPL. Pacer Pat Cummins was the costliest foreign buy at the auction when he fetched Rs 15.5 crore from Kolkata Knight Riders. Glenn Maxwell, Nathan Coulter-Nile and Aaron Finch fetched exorbitant amounts from Kings XI Punjab, Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bangalore respectively.

“Name a list of ten players and they are bidding for these Australian players to get into their IPL team. The players were like ‘I’m not going to sledge Kohli, I want him to pick me for Bangalore so I can make my USD 1 million for my six weeks’.”

“I feel like that’s where Australia went through that little phase where our cricket become a little bit softer or not as hard as we’re accustomed to seeing,” said Clarke about the time after the ball-tampering saga when expressions like ‘Elite honesty’ were spread.

The two powerhouses in cricket have always enjoyed a scorching on-field rivalry with the two teams engaging in many verbal battles. The tours of Down Under in 2007-08 that had the infamous ‘Monkey gate’ in the Sydney Test brings at fore some bitter memories.