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'The thing I said before the first Test, I have certainly been proven wrong and you won't hear me say that ever again.'
India captain Virat Kohli on Tuesday said he no longer considers Australian cricketers his friends after being targetted both on and off the field by them in a fiercely-fought Test series that his team won.
Kohli had stopped short of calling Steve Smith a 'cheat' for following the DRS controversy during the second Test after which a section of Australian cricketers (current and former) along with their media targetted the Indian captain, going as far as to compare him with controversial US president Donald Trump.
Worst, the Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland, in a sarcastic remark to a radio station, said Kohli perhaps does not know the spelling of sorry.
At the end of the rubber, which India won 2-1, an Australian scribe asked if Kohli still considered Smith's men his friends off the field as he had said at the start of the series, the skipper gave a no holds barred answer.
"No, it has changed for sure. I thought that was the case but it has changed for sure. As I said in the heat of the battle, you want to be competitive but yeah I have been proven wrong.
"The thing I said before the first Test, I have certainly been proven wrong and you won't hear me say that ever again," Kohli said.
During the series, the Australian cricketers were seen making fun of Kohli's shoulder injury while Smith had called Murali Vijay a "f****** cheat" for claiming a catch on Monday.
Also, Matthew Wade and Ravindra Jadeja had a near bust up after a lengthy altercation, during day three of the fourth and final Test in Dharamsala.