Virat Kohli appears to mock Australia's sandpaper scandal at SCG

India star Virat Kohli has seemingly mocked the ball-tampering saga that curtailed Steve Smith's career during the last day of the Border-Gavaskar Test series.

Shortly after Smith's dismissal left reduced Australia to 3-58 in its pursuit of 162 to win back the trophy from India, Kohli turned to the fans from first slip, turned out his pockets, shrugged and put his hands up.

He carried on pretending to put something down the front of his pants, as Cameron Bancroft infamously did with the sandpaper on that fateful 2018 day in Cape Town, before twice miming getting something out of his pocket and rubbing it on an imaginary ball.

It was apparently directed at Australian fans in the stands.

As the teams walked off the field with Australia 3-71, still 111 runs from victory on a tough SCG pitch, umpire Sharfuddoula walked straight to Kohli and had a brief discussion with him.

Kohli's celebrations and appeals are always animated, with former Australia seamer Stuart Clark saying on ABC Sport earlier in the day he should not be charging towards the umpire so furiously from slip.

In 2018, then-captain Smith, vice-captain David Warner and Bancroft were all sent home from that tour of South Africa, and then were handed suspensions which ruled them out of the following home summer.

Smith lost the captaincy to Tim Paine, but has since captained his country in Test cricket when current skipper Pat Cummins was unavailable.

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