India v/s England: Plans on to stop Kohli from scoring, says Chris Woakes

With visiting English side pondering more changes to the eleven that lost in Vizag, there is one man from Team India who is constantly giving them sleepless nights and every move or each change the visitors are going to make would be aimed at negating that threat.

So, the possibility of Gareth Batty replacing Zafar Ansari or Chris Woakes' return from knee injury or the pitch behaviour here in the last few Tests where spinners made life hell for the batsmen are far from dominating the team talk in the visitors' room. What actually is the talking point is how to tame the free-flowing Virat Kohli in the remaining three Tests.

The difference between the two teams in hosts scripting a 246-run win in the second Test was Indian skipper's 248 runs (167 & 81). And that's the reason England's star in first Test Woakes straight way comes to tacking Kohli's dominance in the third.

"Kohli scored lot of those runs, especially in the second. So, we are going to have plans to try and stop him scoring… Once he gets in, it's hard to get him out. His first 30 balls wil be crucial," Woakes said on Thursday.

Woakes does believe that toss could play a vital role here in Mohali. "I'm useless at reading pitches and it's a good job I'm not captain. But looking at the wicket I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to see that the ends are a bit more trimmed than the middle of the pitch so therefore we're expecting it to spin. Whether that's from Day One, I'm not too sure but at some point it's going to spin," said Woakes.

Lollygate, no issue

On the 'lollygate', Woakes said that "England won't be doing anything different even in the aftermath of it".

"I think it needs to be clarified to exactly what the problem is. If you're exactly placing a sweet on the ball, that is obviously against the rules but everything else seems to be a little bit of a grey area. That's our stance on it and we won't be changing anything we do when we go out there this week. There's always cameras on you, there always has been, so there's nothing we need to change," said the all-rounder.

He continued to insist that his team players' will carry on sucking their sweets despite the furore over South Africa captain for ball-tampering. In fact, Woakes is the first England player to make public statement ever since a tabloid back home published Kohli's picture of rubbing sweetener on the ball.

"Occasionally at drinks breaks, the guys will come and have sweets or mints – just to freshen up and keep the energy going," he said. "But nothing from the sweet is allowed to go on the ball, or is supposed to. So therefore we don't do that. It's just a sugar boost really, I suppose."