'Get Kohli Riled Up': Mitchell Johnson Reveals Australia's 2014 Boxing Day Test Plan Against Star India Batter

Former Australia pacer Mitchell Johnson has admitted that after his altercation with Virat Kohli during the 2014 Boxing Day Test, his team planned to rile the latter up as soon as he came in to bat so that his focus shifts from his game. Kohli enjoyed his best outing in Australia during the 2014-15 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, which didn't go down well with Australia. Recalling his face-off with Kohli, Johnson spoke about his 'well-publicised personal rivalry' in his column for the West Australian, saying that he and Kohli played cricket in the same intense way and never backed down. Kohli was in stupendous form on that tour Down Under, as he scored four hundreds and one fifty during the series, one of his best performances in overseas conditions, if not the best. "I had a well-publicised personal rivalry with Kohli. We had many interactions on the field and I enjoyed it. While I didn’t know him off the field, on the field we probably similarly played the game, taking the game on and not backing down," Johnson wrote. "Some don’t like that style of cricket and prefer there’s no chat with the opposition, but I enjoyed that part of the game. I would become frustrated during some of our battles, but I also enjoyed that he kept coming at me," Johnson added. One incident the former Australia pacer mentioned was when he tried to run out Kohli during the Boxing Day Test in 2014 but unfortunately, the ball hit the latter instead of the wickets. "Most of our differences stemmed from the Boxing Day Test in 2014 when a ball I threw hit him on the body. I was trying to run him out but he didn’t like what I did. He made some comments in the media that night about having no respect for me as a player," Johnson said. "The goal from our point of view was generally to get Kohli riled up as soon as he came out to bat and take his focus away from his skills. Get him annoyed and get him playing a big shot early," Johnson added.In that game, Kohli scored 169 and 54 in two innings and helped India draw the game despite pacer Ryan Harris' all-round performance.