Oz captain says India skipper is emotional and will use it against him when they tour subcontinent in February
How do you bring out the best from a certain Virat Kohli? Rub him the wrong way and he will show you who is the boss. Ask his opponents in the business and they will tell you how difficult is the Indian captain to deal with.
England team was the recent victim of Kohli’s ire after he was wrongly accused of ball tampering.
However, it seems Australian skipper Steven Smith hasn’t learnt the lesson or is ignoring the experiences of others who have tried to mess with Indian captain.
Instead, he is following the wrong path by planning to take the Indian captain head on when the Aussies tour to the Indian subcontinent for the high profile four-match Test series in February next year.
The Australians are currently locked in a thrilling battle at home with India’s arch-rivals Pakistan, however, Smith has his one eye on the bigger battle and tougher conditions.
Smith feels he knows how he can stop him the man at the centre. Talking to ABC Grandstand, a radio channel, the Aussie skipper said: “He (Kohli) is a world-class player and he has, obviously, led the Indian team incredibly well over the last 18 months or so. They have won a lot of games in that time and I think they have played a lot of cricket at home in that time as well. I think he has improved a lot body-language wise. He is a very emotional character out on the field but I think he has improved a lot there.”
“I guess for us as a team it’s trying to get him out of the strong emotional state and try and make him, I guess, a little bit angry and ruffle his feathers and things like that. I think if you can get him in that state then the Indian team can possibly be a little bit vulnerable,” he added.
Kohli has been in a roaring this year scoring against all the teams he has played against including having scored three double hundreds all in different series, accumulating more than 1,200 runs.
Smith is excited to come to India, but he is happy playing as underdogs. “We, obviously, go there in February and, no doubt, it’s going to be an incredibly difficult tour – going to India always is. Four Tests there, it’s a great opportunity for this team where we are, obviously, going to be the underdogs going there.
“It would be fantastic to win a series there and we are going to have to make sure our processes are in order and we play a lot better than we have done in sub-continent conditions. Gee, it would be fabulous to win over there,” he said.
Criticised recently for his field placements by former cricketers for his defensive approach in the pink-ball Test against Pakistan, Smith admits that he has to work on his body-language “For me, an area I think I probably need to improve on is my body language. I think that is something I am going to work on,” he said.
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