“THERE was a moment I wanted to pick up the stump and stab him.”

That’s Ed Cowan speaking about his run-in with Virat Kohli.

Does Cowan strike you as the sort of person who would want to impale the Indian captain with a stump? I didn’t think so.

Cowan is talking on our new podcast — The Stack Report — in a sprawling conversation about his career and cricket in general.

We’re marvelling at the recent series in India and I say I’ve enjoyed watching Kohli, in part because of the villain element he brings to cricket.

The sport is better when there’s a villain: Stuart Broad, Graeme Smith, Arjuna Ranatunga. It’s a flippant comment and he shifts uneasily in his seat.

Has he ever had a run-in with the Indian skipper?

Cowan is forthcoming. Maybe too honest. I can see him weigh up whether or not to tell me what he really thinks.

India’s Virat Kohli is one of cricket’s more divisive characters. Source: AP

“I’m a huge fan of his cricket. Don’t get me wrong he’s a phenomenal cricketer,” says Cowan.

“I had a little bit of a run-in that was inappropriate when he toured Australia and the umpire had to intervene.

“We forget that English isn’t their first language. It’s very easy to sit back and say as a player they’re barking something at me that is inappropriate when we don’t try and converse with them in Hindi.

“There’s always going to be niggles around misinterpretation of what’s said and what isn’t said on the field.

“I had a very sick Mum during one of those series and he said something that was inappropriate.

“Why I make the point of ‘lost in translation’, he said something that was highly inappropriate. A personal matter that was highly sensitive. Highly inappropriate. But he didn’t realise that he’d overstepped the mark until the umpire came over and said — ‘Virat that’s overstepped the mark’ — and once that was said, he took a step back and apologised.

“But, there was a moment I wanted to pick up the stump and stab him.”

Listen to Patrick Stack’s new podcast The Stack Report here or subscribe on iTunes or your podcast app.

India — the place and the team — has been at the centre of much of Cowan’s most important career moments. He made his debut against them at the MCG. The last time Australia’s Test side toured the nation, Cowan was front and centre for one of the most tumultuous moments in our cricket history.

The Australian squad’s deep dysfunction was laid bare as coach Mickey Arthur sent home four players for failing to complete a team building exercise.

Some saw the move as heavy-handed, arguing that professional athletes had no right to be treated like naughty school boys. Homework-gate was a watershed moment.

“Most of the players at the time in the group thought it was appropriate,” says Cowan.

“When we sat in that room, it got told to us and I remember it vividly in Mohali there were people in tears upset. The people that had been left out, it meant so much to them they’d been left out or unavailable, it actually brought the team closer together.

“I maintain to this day that the people made the mistake, knew at that point they had made a mistake and the rest of the team knew what the standard was from there on. As it turned out, the test in Mohali was by far and away our best Test match (of that tour). So something that happened that twigged and I think if Mickey had been able to play that out a little bit longer...”

Mickey Arthur deserves more credit than he receives, according to Ed Cowan. Source: News Limited

Arthur wasn’t able to play it out.

He was sacked before an away Ashes series and Darren Lehmann took over. Cowan played the first Test of that series despite being violently ill.

Unsurprisingly, he failed and was dropped. Australia lost that one but vindication came for the new coach in the form of a 5-0 Ashes win at home.

Cowan believes much of that victory was borne from the work of Arthur in India.

“Yeah I think so, to a degree,” he says. “Mitchell Johnson, Brad Haddin, essentially won the Ashes back 5-0. Would Mickey have been able to produce those results? Who knows? My guess is to say anyone could’ve coached Mitchell Johnson that series.”

Could Cowan still be playing Test cricket if it was a different coaching set-up?

“I’ve become a bit of a caricature of myself,” Cowan says.

“My job, and it had been sort of ingrained in me, was to face as many balls [as possible] in this Test team. You protect Michael Clarke, you protect Michael Hussey, Ricky Ponting, to the best that you can do.

“One hundred balls, can you do 150 balls? We don’t care if you’re 30. I was like, ‘I’m gonna take some pride in this as my job’ and it kind of ... if I had my time again I probably would’ve said, ‘You know, I kind of get what you’re saying but I’m gonna do it the best way I see fit which would be to put some pressure on the bowlers’.

“As it turns out, I got dropped for being a bit too defensive.”

Elite cricketers don’t necessarily look like elite athletes. Cowan is slightly built, wide-eyed, with a crop of hair that resembles steel wool. He doesn’t speak like most athletes, either.

He’s expansive and philosophical and engaged. When you talk with Cowan, you feel like you’re having a conversation. In my experience, that is not normal for this kind of interaction.

This year he has performed like an elite athlete. The New South Welshman has just finished a Sheffield Shield season where he scored nearly one thousand runs at an average of 73 — more than anyone in the competition.

Ed Cowan has been in the runs for NSW in the Shield this year. Source: Getty Images

If you haven’t heard about it, you’re probably not alone. For whatever reason, he is unfashionable. His name has not been thrown around for a possible return to Test cricket. Cowan has been here before but at 34 years of age, time is not on his side.

“I think the realist in me thinks it’s done and maybe that’s created this cricketer who is playing like how he is,” he says.

“Would I like to play cricket for Australia again? Of course. That’s why I turn up to training. You turn up to training to get better.

“If you get the opportunity to test yourself to see how good you are in the Australian team, of course you’d do it. But do I go to bed dreaming about it like I did? No.”

I mention Chris Rogers and Adam Voges. Blokes snuck in Test careers between the age of 34/35 and 37.

“Not only that, I’m the same age as Shaun Marsh.”

Maybe he’s not done just yet.