#INDvAUS 3rd Test: After DRSgate, it is Mockgate

Australia's Glenn Maxwell mocking India captain Virat Kohli's shoulder injury on the third day of the third Test here on Saturday did not go down too well with many, with fans and cricketing experts calling it disrespect to the India skipper.

There may not have been verbal war or sledging between players in this Test so far after the Steve Smith's DRSgate in Bengaluru. So much build up towards this Test was on playing the remaining two games of this series in the spirit of the game and moving on from the DRSgate.

But one cannot say for certain if the two teams walked the talk. So much is at stake between the Nos. 1 and 2 Test teams in the world that every action is closely monitored.
And at the slightest of hints do the actions get magnified.

After seeing an incident-free opening two days, the first taste of bitter feeling between the teams came through Kohli, who was all padded up to bat when Murali Vijay and Cheteshwar Pujara were stitching their century partnership in the morning session on Saturday.

Kohli opened the dressing room door and came out to clap hard after Australia had an unsuccessful DRS against Pujara, exhausting both their reviews.

Kohli may just be egging on his two batsmen in the middle to carry on after the television replays picked the ball nicking the bat first and then the pad. But social media went into a frenzy with some saying it was mocking at the Australians' failed DRS.

The next incident aimed at hitting back at Kohli and his shoulder injury. In the third ball of the 80th over, Pujara drove Patrick Cummins to wide long-on and took three.

Glenn Maxwell gave a long, hard chase and dived to stop the boundary, saving one run. In the process, he crashed into the advertising boards. He got up and held on to his right shoulder with his left hand, just like how Kohli did in pain two days ago, but with a mischievous smile on his lips.

It was a coincidence that the chase was in almost the same direction as Kohli's with the batsmen taking three on both the occasions.

With those three runs for Pujara bringing Kohli on strike, he perished to an edge to Smith at second slip.

Completing the catch without any difficulty, social media posted a picture that showed Smith also holding on to his left shoulder with his right hand in his celebration. They found two culprits for mocking, but one was them wasn't.

Actually, the Smith image had the right hand of gully fielder Peter Handscomb on his skipper's shoulder as part of the celebrations.

But as for Maxwell, one does not go to the extent of mocking someone's injury. The Indians and Australians made faces at each other in the previous Tests with pacer Ishant Sharma aping Smith and the Australian captain giving it back with flashes of smile.

But to mock an injury was uncalled for.

Asked how the Indian team has taken to Maxwell mocking Kohli's injury, opener Murali Vijay said: "A lot of things are happening, but to be honest we have really focussed on the games. We have a match in hand, so we've got to go close to their total. These are the things running in our heads in the dressing room. All the players are aware of it (mocking). Whatever they're doing, we take it as a sportive thing. There's going to be a second innings, so hopefully if they can take it that way, it'll be great."

The Australian camp did not read much into Kohli's clap after the second failed DRS. Their assistant coach David Saker said: "I know he came out and clapped, I don't know if it was directed at anyone in particular but that's the way he's been playing this series.

"It's a really cut-throat series for everyone and it's first versus second, there's a lot of pressure on him at the moment. And there's pressure on everyone at the moment.

"I don't think it was directed at anything. I just think when you lose your two reviews, it's a bit of a relief to the opposition and he probably just showed that," he added.

However, this was not the first time an India-Australia contest was marred by a player mocking a rival's injury. India's Shikhar Dhawan mocked Shane Watson's hamstring injury during an ODI in Bengaluru in 2013. Watson went off the field during India's innings due to a hamstring injury and came out to bat at No. 8.

Watson played R Vinay Kumar to mid-off, where Dhawan dived to stop the ball. After getting up, he faked a hamstring injury and hobbled to imitate Watson. Though the then captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni signalled to Dhawan to not do such imitations, Watson was not at all pleased with the India opener's action.

Neither are a lot of Indians with Maxwell.