Australian cricketer Marcus Stoinis has confessed that the Indian players who do not even make the playing XI are far more talented than him. “India is the most talented team in the world. Hands down. The players not playing are way more talented than me,” Stoinis said in the recently released documentary on the Australian team.
India after taking the early 2-0 lead in the series faced three consecutive defeats and ended with the series loss 2-3.
“I love playing in India. I love the culture – its unmatched energy. It heightens all your senses. If you can harness all that excitement, that energy there is no way you can rock up there and not be motivated to play,” Stoinis further added.
In the same documentary, Australian team head coach Justin Langer also said that Indian captain Virat Kohli had got under the skin of his side during India’s hugely successful tour down under in 2018-19.
Kohli’s celebrations angered Langer but he could not be expressive about it.
“I remember that afternoon (feeling) like a punching bag. We can’t fight back because it felt like we had our hands behind our backs and we just had to take it,” Langer said in Amazon’s recently released docu-series titled ‘The Test’.
“You must be feeling the double standards the way their captain is carrying on and we sort of have to be careful. Imagine if we behaved two out of ten (of) that,” he said.
“We were 1-0 down but I felt that day Virat was getting under our skin,” Langer added after Kohli gave a send-off to couple of Australian batsmen in the second innings.
Langer asked his players to take on Kohli but warned the hosts not to cross the line between banter and abuse. “There is a difference between abuse and banter. There is no room for abuse. We don’t need to abuse him but there is banter where you stick up for your mate.”