Nick Compton, the former England opener, has looked back at their tour of India in 2012, and how the visiting side tried to wind Virat Kohli up with an incident related to his love life.

Compton, speaking on The Edges & Sledges Cricket Podcast, revealed how he’d met a lady on an evening out, who he later found out was Kohli’s ex-girlfriend. He only realised Kohli wasn’t too pleased about it when he was in the middle batting, and the Indian batsman sent a few words sent in his direction.

“I definitely got a few words from Virat Kohli during the series,” he said. “I think I bumped into his ex-girlfriend at the time before the series when out for an evening with Kevin Pietersen and myself, Yuvraj Singh … all of us were there, and she was there.

“I just chatted to her and the word got back that I was speaking to her, and I don’t think Virat Kohli was very happy with that. He had a few words to say to me every time I walked out to bat. He was trying to say that it was his girlfriend, and she was saying that it was her ex-boyfriend. It was like, ‘Who’s got the story right here,’ you know what I mean?

“It was quite funny at the time, and the players in our England camp caught hold of it. We used it as a way to keep winding him up and, you know, trying to get in his head.

“But he’s a world-class performer, and he came back and scored a good hundred in the last [game in Nagpur]. And obviously his career has gone on from strength to strength. But it was a funny joke that we had throughout the series, and something that I always smile about. But everything was in good faith.”