Glenn Maxwell reveals the reason why Virat Kohli had blocked him on Instagram

The Australian all-rounder revealed how he had made fun of Kohli during the Test match between India and Australia in 2017, which led to the Indian batter blocking him

Virat Kohli and Glenn Maxwell may be friends today, however they had quite a different relationship at one time.  Maxwell revealed in his recently-released book titled ‘The Showman’ that Kohli backed his inclusion in the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) squad after his controversial time with the Punjab Kings.

However, 4 years before they became teammates, an incident between the 2 forced Kohli to block Maxwell on Instagram. Ahead of IPL 2021, RCB acquired the services of Maxwell for a whopping Rs. 14.25 crore, which made the franchise one of the most destructive batting units in the IPL. The Australian all-rounder would go on to score over 500 runs that season as RCB reached the playoffs and ended up finishing third.

However, before their relationship prospered, Kohli was upset with a certain behaviour of Maxwell’s dating back to the 2017 Border-Gavaskar series.

“When I knew that I was going to RCB, Virat was the first guy to message me and welcome me to the team. When I turned up for the pre-IPL training camp, we obviously got chatting and spent a fair bit of time training together as you do. So I go to his social. media, follow him. Didn’t even think about it before that. Never really crossed my mind. I was like ‘I can’t find him,” Maxwell said on the LiSTNR Sport podcast.

“I’m sure he’s on social media somewhere so I didn’t think anything of it. Not really that maybe he wasn’t savvy with Instagram. Didn’t really understand why he wasn’t coming up and then someone mentioned that he might have blocked you. That is the only way you’re not able to find him. I was like surely not,” Maxwell added.

What had actually happened was that during Australia’s tour of India back in 2017, Maxwell had mocked Kohli for a shoulder injury which the Indian star player had sustained while fielding on the opening day of the Ranchi Test. When it was Australia’s turn to field Maxwell had made fun of Kohli, who didn’t take the banter kindly.

“Then I went and asked him ‘Have you blocked me on Instagram?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah probably. It was when you mocked me during that Test match. I think I got the sh*** and decided to block you. I was like ‘yeah, that’s fair enough’. So yeah, he ended up unblocking me, and we became great friends after that,”Maxwell said.

However, since that incident, Kohli and Maxwell have mellowed down and have become quite good friends. Having gone through a range of similar experiences, the two superstars of their respective countries have bonded in more ways than one.