Virat Kohli may have been Australian cricket’s public enemy No.1 for a while now but experts in the country believe it is time to be nice and friendly to the India captain once the Test series gets underway from December 6.
Kohli was involved in two of the most acrimonious Test series between India and Australia. In 2014-15, Kohli and Mitchell Johnson were involved in heated verbal exchanges – Kohli responded with four hundreds in four Tests. Two years later, Kohli was furious with Steve Smith’s decision to seek dressing-room help over the Decision Review System (DRS). Tensions between the two captains remained high throughout the series. By the end of the final Test in Dharamsala, Kohli declared he would no longer want to stay friends with Australian cricketers.
However, the feisty India captain later clarified that his comments were reserved for only a couple of Australian players.
With Smith and David Warner unavailable to take on India in the four-Test series due to the ball-tampering bans, many former cricketers believe India have the upper hand. Kohli has been in sensational form since the beginning of 2016 and he has a great record in Australia: 992 runs including 5 hundreds in 8 Tests.
This series is likely to be played in much better spirit. For starters, a review of Australia’s cricket culture has forced the players to mellow down. Coach Justin Langer wants his men to make Australians proud with their cricket and tone down the verbal assault. Many ex Australia cricketers do not seem to agree with the ‘Be nice, be good’ diktat but Dean Jones believes it would be dangerous to irk Kohli who has promised to retaliate in the event Australia decide to sledge his team.
“Do not talk or provoke him. Make him your best mate,” Jones told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Jones said there was no visible weakness in Kohli’s game – the India captain is the leading run scorer in Tests as well as ODIs this year with a string of hundreds in South Africa and England while his other colleagues failed.
“Trying to find a weakness in Kohli’s game is like trying to find something wrong with the Mona Lisa. Teams must stop his cover drive and bowl in different areas.
“At the start of Kohli’s innings, quicks need to bowl at a fourth-stump line and make him play on the back foot. Do not give him width and length outside off-stump.
“Bowlers must try to set him up with short stuff first and then the odd wide ball on the drive to find the edge. Slips and gully stay on high alert.”
But then there are others like Kim Hughes, who feel Australia need to get under Kohli’s skin to try and unsettle him.
“You are not going to become pussycats. That’s not racially vilifying him (Kohli) at all or anything like that but just a good stare, or a couple of words, that’s part of the Australian way. Most blokes’ nicknames are usually when you have a stuff-up, not when you have a had a glorious moment,” Hughes told the Sydney Morning Herald. “If he (Kohli) is not the best player in the world, he is in the final two or three … I think he is the best player in the world. When you have 1.2 billion people in the world supporting you and expecting you to do well, there is a fair bit of pressure. He is the type of player that you would feel as an opposition that you could get under his skin.”