Ricky Ponting has a suggestion for Australia to tackle Virat Kohli

Right ahead of Australia's tour of India, their former skipper Ricky Ponting has anointed Virat Kohli with the title of the best batsman in the world.

According to a report in Sydney Morning Herald, Ponting said in an interview, "Is he the best batsman in the world? Yeah, he probably is. I thought he was six or seven months ago and he's probably taken it to another level since then."

At the beginning of this year, Virat Kohli was appointed Team India's captain in all three formats of the game. He had an outstanding year with a win in the Caribbeans, 3-0 whitewash of New Zealand and England.

In the recently concluded series against England, Kohli scored 655 runs at an average of 109.16 in eight innings which also included two centuries.

This does force the team Down Under to take the Indian captain as a deathly threat. Ponting offered a piece of advice for the team and their skipper Steve Smith on how to handle Kohli.

"The one thing about Virat Kohli is whenever there's any confrontation, he does get a little bit outside of his comfort zone. You can see that he gets ultra-aggressive, which may be a good thing for him or maybe good for the opposition," said Ponting.

"We will wait and see what happens. I think he's a similar sort of character to me as well. He wears his heart on his sleeve. He's pretty animated. He's a very aggressive player. Someone like Virat, you have to take his boundary-scoring areas away and make him score his runs in different areas or make him bat for a longer time to make his runs."

He also advised Team Australia to try and stop the momentum Team India creates as a home team.

Australia's tour of India begins on February 23, 2017, at Pune