Maxwell: Kohli comments taken out of context

Glenn Maxwell says comments he made about Virat Kohli were taken out of context and he remains a big fan of the India captain.

After firing Australia to an unassailable 3-0 lead over India in their one-day series, Maxwell was quoted as saying Kohli was more focused on personal milestones than team totals.

However, Maxwell – a doubt for the final ODI of the series with a knee injury – has moved to clarify his remarks.

Speaking to Cricket Australia Maxwell said: "I was asked to give a bit of an assessment of who was dominating with the bat in this series, and I said 'I don't think anyone in the world is hitting the ball better than Virat at the moment'.

"Some of the reporting I've seen makes it seem like I was personally attacking one of the best players in the game about the way he plays, which is completely untrue.

"The point that I was making, and it related more to when India were setting totals and had plenty of wickets in hand, is that the scoring rate seemed to slow as milestones got close, which can sometimes be the case, especially when teams are batting first.

"Maintaining a constant scoring rate can be less straightforward batting first than when you're chasing and you know what the required rate has to be, and there have been times when batters just seem to have slowed a bit to make sure they reach those milestones.

"Sometimes that wins you games, and sometimes it doesn't but that was the only point I was trying to make."

Maxwell added: "I've got a really good relationship with Virat off the field and I've already had a chat with him.

"A lot of us are still in awe of what he can do on the field. Everyone wants to play like Virat does.

"As a team, we have enormous respect for him largely because he goes about his cricket in much the same way as we do."