Virat Kohli and Tim Paine have been not exactly the best of friends in Perth (AP Photo)

Sunil Gavaskar was critical of the Indian team after an ugly war of words between Virat Kohli and Tim Paine during the fourth day of the Perth Test. Kohli and Paine collided with each other before the umpire was forced to intervene before lunch.

And then during India's innings, Paine had a go at Vijay and said: "Murali, I know he's your captain but you can't seriously like him as a bloke."

Former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar also blasted Kohli's on-field behaviour and said the India skipper needed to be more responsible.

On Monday, Gavaskar said the Indian team are no saints and he believed they were the ones who began the sledging war in Australia and now they had to be prepared to cop it. Ironically, Kohli had promised his men won't start any verbal wars and would react only if the Australians played dirty.

"Tim Paine is not in the Indian dressing room.. So how does he know Vijay does not like Kohli?," Gavaskar told India Today.

"These are the kind of things which are called gamesmanship. We have not been saints either. Way back in 2014, when Australia were down with the tragic death of Phillip Hughes, we started it. They were too shocked in the first Test and we started it.

"In a situation like this, we will always lose. Australia are used to playing like that, we are not. It's not in our DNA to play cricket like that. You also have to take into account if everyone in the team can take it. Even over here, we have started it," Gavaskar said.

Back in 2014, there were intense verbal exchanges between Kohli and Mitchell Johnson before the likes of Steve Smith, David Warner and Brad Haddin became involved at different times.

In 2017, Kohli and Smith were at loggerheads after the DRS controversy in Bengaluru.

This time, it's Kohli and Paine. In fact, the Australian skipper called his Indian counterpart "big head" after Kohli said Australia would be 2-0 down if Paine messed up.