Virat Kohli, Indian Test Captain, on Friday rubbished allegations of ball-tampering against him by a British tabloid during the first Test at Rajkot between India and England. Earlier, coach Anil Kumble too had refuted the claims.

British tabloid ‘Daily Mail’ had released a footage of Kohli applying saliva to the ball in a similar manner to South African skipper Faf du Plessis, which had prompted International Cricket Council (ICC) to take action against him.

Kohli said that it is an attempt to take the focus away from the series and a newspaper article doesn’t matter over ICC’s decision.

“I think it’s just to take the focus away from the series to be honest. It happened in Australia when South Africa won the series. I’m surprised the issue of what I’ve been told came up in Rajkot but there was no mention until the result in Vizag,” Kohli said.

“To me newspaper article doesn’t matter over ICC’s decision. I don’t read newspapers, was told 5 days later that such things happened, I just laughed it off,” he added.

However the British journalist was not happy and had leading question as a follow-up.

“You doing what Du Plessis was doing?” the journalist probed further.

“What was I doing?” was Kohli’s polite counter-query.

“If was doing something ICC would have spoken to me,” he finished it off then and there.

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