Kohli, training with India at the Murdoch Oval in Perth, caught everyone by surprise after belting out a volley of abuse at Hindustan Times‘ travelling journalist Jasvinder Sidhu, who was watching the proceedings from the sidelines.

In a first-person account of the events, Sidhu described how Kohli singled him out and let out a barrage of abuse in Hindi at the unsuspecting journalist.

“Despite the distance, I could hear invectives like g***u and be***hod pretty clearly,” Sidhu wrote in his account for Hindustan Times. “His furiously wagging index finger left no room for doubt — I was clearly the victim of his scorn. However, to confirm, just in case, I pointed towards myself and gestured if he was talking to me. The confirmation came with another gesticulation.

“Unable to believe that I was the one being singled out, I looked askance in either direction. Huffing and puffing, Kohli said, ‘Yes, you ba****d. You are here also.’

“It came as a shocker to me. I told the guys beside me that I was clueless about his anger being directed at me. I didn’t understand why he was trying to intimidate me without any possible provocation. Before I could gather myself, he walked towards the dressing room with his kit in hand, murmuring continuously, “m** ki c***”. He was staring at me all this while without batting an eyelid.”

Sidhu went on to point out that other journalists and eyewitnesses at the scene were also left bewildered, with no clarity as to what had triggered the then-India vice-captain. Ten minutes later, Kohli emerged from the dressing room, reportedly signalling truce with a friendly wave.

It was only later that the reason for Kohli’s umbrage became clear: he had mistakenly identified Sidhu to be another journalist from an English daily, who had written about Anushka Sharma. Kohli offered an apology, but not directly, conveying it through a fellow journalist of Sidhu. Having been “abused and intimidated” though, Sidhu wasn’t convinced by the apology.

“However, I told Sumit [Ghosh, the journalist who had passed on the apology] that such behaviour doesn’t behove of an international player, even if it was not directed at me. I told Sumit: ‘Go and tell him that he is an international player and he should learn how to behave. How can he abuse and intimidate someone?’”

Dr RN Baba, the media manager, refuted the claim that Kohli had abused the journalist, saying: “There was a misunderstanding and no abusive language was used.”

Sidhu is set to have made a formal complaint to the ICC, maintaining that Kohli had not directly apologised to him. In a statement that followed, the BCCI warned Kohli, urging him to “not repeat the behaviour in the future”.

With some of India’s cricketers currently at loggerheads with certain sections of the country’s press, sparked by Wriddhiman Saha’s revelations of the threatening messages sent him by an unnamed journalist, here’s hoping another case of mistaken identity doesn’t lead to a bust-up.