Kohli collided with the 19-year-old debutant on the first morning of the Boxing Day Test at the MCG between overs. Konstas brushed off the incident as "it happens, it's cricket", but Kohli met severe backlash from both former cricketers and fans globally.

"He's been rattled by a 19-year-old," said Michael Vaughan about the incident, while Ricky Ponting said "Virat walked one whole pitch over to his right and instigated that confrontation."

Kohli was found to be in breach of article 2.12 of ICC's Code of Conduct and was handed one demerit point to go with a fine of 20 per cent of the match fees for a Level 1 offence. He accepted the charge. However, many felt that the punishment wasn't strong enough.

Ponting felt that "given the enormity" of the moment, Kohli deserved a harsher punishment and insinuated that the scale of punishment was different since Kohli was at the receiving end. Speaking ahead of the second day's play, he said: "Unfortunately for someone like Virat, as we got told as players and as senior players, sometimes it's [the scale of punishment] just different for some people. He's a role model, he's somebody the cricketing world looks up to, so I personally don't think that the fine was harsh enough."

What have previous sanctions for similar incidents been like?

Since September 2016, there have been 18 breaches of article 2.12 of the Code of Conduct, which deals with "inappropriate physical contact with a Player, Player Support Personnel, Umpire, Match Referee or any other person (including a spectator) during an International Match", except for the Kohli-Konstas incident.

Seventeen of those 18 breaches have come in men's international cricket, and one in the women's game. Only six of those 18 incidents have seen the offending player being handed more than one demerit point. And only twice out of those six incidents has a player been given three demerit points.

The two instances of inappropriate contact leading to a Level 2 offence (and consequently three demerit points) involve Apolinaire Stephen of Vanuatu and Arjun Kumal of Nepal. Stephen had dismissed Malysian opener Syed Aziz in a T20I in 2019 before engaging in "deliberate shoulder contact" while Kumal "deliberately ran into the bowler while completing a run" in a 2024 U19 World Cup game between Nepal and Bangladesh.

While there's not much visual evidence to judge how severe those two instances were, the fact that Kohli has been given a similar punishment as two-thirds of players who have been guilty of inapporpriate physical contact in the last eight years indicates that the "scale of punishment" is pretty much consistent irrespective of who is on the receiving end.

As for the 20 per cent match fees fine, among the 12 out of the 18 incidents where only one demerit point was handed out, a fine greater than what Kohli received has been given out only thrice - to George Munsey of Scotland, Farid Ahmed Malik of Afghanistan, and Jasdeep Singh of USA - all of whom were fined 25 per cent of their match fees for breaching article 2.12.

All previous breaches of article 2.12 in international cricket since September 2016

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