Indian captain Virat Kohli has expressed his shock and disappointment by how Australia’s ball tampering trio were treated in the aftermath of the sandpaper scandal earlier this year.

In a wide-ranging interview with Adam Gilchrist on Fox Cricket which will be shown in its entirety on Sunday following day four of the first Test, Kohli, a hot head in his formative years who infamously gave the finger to the SCG crowd during his first tour down under, said he was saddened to see to the trio – Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft – treated with such disdain following the events in Cape Town.

Smith and Warner were given one-year bans by Cricket Australia for their part in one of Australian Test cricket’s ugliest events. Bancroft, who carried out the ball tampering, was given a nine-month ban.

All three men were slammed across the world and gave emotional press conferences after arriving back home in Australia.

“Well, it was sad to see,” Kohli said.

“As big a thing as it became, you never want to see anyone go through that because I have known David and I have known Steve as well.

“Apart all the competitiveness on the field and all the battles that you have, you never want to see such a magnitude happen to two sportsmen and what happened after was, I felt, very bad. I felt like that the things happened after shouldn’t have happened.

“The things that hit me the hardest was the way they were received at the airports and the way they were escorted out.

“Those things to me felt like this is very, very hectic.

“It is not my place to comment on the decisions but to treat people like that for me it was unpleasant to see. I would never want to experience that as a cricketer.”

And in another surprising twist, Kohli has revealed that he and Warner are friends off the field.

Two of the most competitive men in world cricket, the duo have had a number of heated exchanges on the field.

But Kohli revealed that despite their public clashes on the field, the duo share a mutual respect.

“Not at that time precisely,” said Kohli, after being asked whether he’d spoken to Australia’s banned trio since the controversy.

“But after that event, from then on and before, I’ve always been in touch with David.

“Me and him get along really well, so I’ve always been in touch with him. He’s always nice and sends me texts after games and he’s been very kind to me.

“It takes two people to break a barrier – which might be created on the field – and he’s been more than welcoming in that regard and I have reciprocated in the same way.”

Kohli’s sympathetic view comes from his past mistakes.

“The one thing is that I’ve always been myself, I’ve never tried to be someone else because of the opinion,” said Kohli, after being asked whether he is a different man to the one that first toured Australia as a 22-year-old in 2012.

“Hence, I learn from my own mistakes, I realise my own mistakes myself and just kept correcting them through the journey. But massively different from the last two tours, especially the first one, I was so bad.

“I didn’t have a good understanding of where to draw the line and stuff like that.

“Those are things that I, I wouldn’t say I regret, but those definitely I look at them as mistakes.

“But mistakes that were important for me to commit so I can learn from them.

“I was never a perfect mould of typical old school cricketer, I always just wanted to find my own way and I guess those things were a part of that journey.”