Former South Africa skipper Dean Elgar has claimed that star India batter Virat Kohli “spat at him” during a Test match and apologised two years later after being confronted by his Royal Challengers Bangalore teammate AB de Villiers.
Elgar retired from international cricket after the conclusion of South Africa’s two-Test series against India at home in December while standing-in for regular skipper Temba Bavuma.
Without mentioning the series in which the incident took place — speculated to be South Africa’s tour of India in 2015 — Elgar agreed on a podcast that he had showdowns with Kohli and Ravichandran Ashwin.
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“All the time,” Elgar said on ‘Banter with The Boys’ podcast sitting alongside former South African all-rounder Chris Morris and rugby player Jean de Villiers.
Elgar then said, “In India…those wickets were jokes. And I came into bat and I was actually like holding my own against Ashwin and what’s his name Jajeja… ja-ja-jajeja, (‘Jadeja’, said someone in the background) and Kohli, he like spat at me,” Elgar said.
“I said to him, ‘if you do that, I’ll f*****g *** you with this bat’,” Elgar claimed.
“Did he understand that word?” asked the podcast host referring to the beeped out word.
“Yes, he did because (AB) de Villiers was his teammate at RCB so he understood. I said ‘if you do that, I’ll absolutely knock you out’,” Elgar claimed.
The former South African opener said after de Villiers found out about the incident, he took up the matter with his good friend and RCB teammate. Elgar did not specify when exactly de Villiers discussed the incident with Kohli.
“Anyway, so, I realised that de Villiers found out what he did and went up to him and said ‘bud, why are you spitting at my teammate bud? That’s not on’ and two years later, he (Kohli) calls me aside playing (in) South Africa and said ‘can we go have a drink at the end of the series? ‘I want to just apologise for my actions’.”
“Two years later in South Africa, he says he wants to apologise for what he did. We had a drink, (the) punchline is we drank till 3 am in the morning. This is when he used to drink, now he is obviously converted a bit,” Elgar added.
When asked how was his experience playing his final Test for South Africa against the likes of Kohli and Ashwin, Elgar replied, “awesome”. Kohli apparently did not celebrate after taking a catch off Elgar’s bat in his final Test innings at Cape Town in December 2023 and hugged the South African as he returned to the pavilion.
Kohli even gave one of his Test jerseys to the Proteas player.