A fresh flare-up in the India-Australia cricket psyche bubbled up in the IPL when Royal Challengers Bengaluru took on Sunrisers Hyderabad. During the post-match handshake, Virat Kohli appeared to deliberately ignore Travis Head, turning a routine moment into a talking point. On the field, barbs were traded and the usual sledges made the rounds, but the handshake snub provided the flashpoint.
Quick facts
- Kohli and Head sparked a heated moment during RCB vs SRH, highlighted by Kohli ignoring Head during the handshake.
- Gavaskar later compared the incident’s intensity to the earlier India-Australia “walk-off” episode at the 1981 MCG Test.
- Sunil Gavaskar said nothing similar happened and that the details of the Kohli-Head moment must be understood from the players themselves.
- Gavaskar linked his own 1981 anger not to an umpiring error, but to the aggressive reaction from certain Australian players, led by Dennis Lillee.
- India ultimately won the 1981 Test on Australian soil, with Kapil Dev taking a famous five-wicket haul; Gavaskar was captain, while Allan Border later became Australia’s captain.
Kohli has been involved in fiery exchanges with Australian players both on the field and in the crowd, but the deeper tension between the two cricketing nations stretches much further back. It traces to the infamous “walk-off” incident at the 1981 MCG Test, when an incensed Sunil Gavaskar nearly pulled his team out of the contest after being furious with the Australians in the wake of an LBW call that went against him.
Gavaskar and Border revisit 1981
In a fresh revisit of that chapter, Gavaskar reunited with former Australia captain Allan Border on the Midwicket Stories talk-show. The duo discussed what unfolded during that afternoon at the MCG and reflected on how quickly emotions can take over when competitive instincts collide with controversy.
When asked to respond to the Kohli-Head incident in the shadow of the 1981 episode, Gavaskar played down any direct comparison. Speaking to reporters afterwards, he suggested the situation was not on the same level and that the full context of what was said and done would be best known by those involved.
“Nothing similar happened, nowhere to be compared. You will have to ask both of them what happened,” Gavaskar said. His point underscored how public moments can look similar from the outside, while the underlying circumstances may be very different.
“Anybody can snap…”
Gavaskar also offered his broader view on the nature of heated contests. In the heat of the moment, he argued, tempers flare and players can “snap” before cooler heads prevail.
He added that during his era there were no stump microphones, meaning the world never got an audio window into what was said between players. Now, with stump mics and other broadcast technologies, more of the raw interaction reaches spectators quickly, intensifying scrutiny around on-field confrontations.
“In the heat of the moment things happen, anybody can snap. During our time there weren’t stump mics, so nothing went out. But with stump mics you can hear what goes on. At the end of the day, when you play for your country, you give just about everything, lood, sweat toil, and tears,” Gavaskar said.
That conversation with Border became a return trip to the specifics of 1981. Gavaskar reiterated that his anger at the time was not rooted in the belief that the decision was wrong—he maintained he had an inside edge onto his pad. Instead, he pointed to the way certain Australian players responded at the end of a 165-run opening partnership with Chetan Chauhan, with Dennis Lillee leading the escalation in aggression.
Gavaskar explained that what took place eventually reached the public only after a delay, but modern platforms have shortened that gap. “Everything goes to the public domain a lot sooner… the clip that you saw of 1981, there have been videos of the 1981 incident, but two people in AB and me talking about it, that’s probably the first time where people got to know what happened, so it’s taken that long,” he said, before adding that social media now makes such incidents surface far more immediately.
“But now thanks to social media, it’s probably a lot more immediate in how it will come through,” Gavaskar added.
Still, the final outcome of that 1981 match belonged to India. The visitors clinched their third Test win on Australian soil, powered by Kapil Dev’s legendary five-wicket haul. Gavaskar captained the side in that game, while Allan Border would later take charge for Australia, beginning a line of combative leaders that would come to define the team’s edge Down Under.
