The Border-Gavaskar Trophy between India and Australia is just around the corner. Any contest between the two heavyweights is always a closely followed affair. In the upcoming four-match series, which starts on February 9 in Nagpur, Virat Kohli’s performance will also be closely watched. The star batter has returned to form in the limited overs formats. His show in the Tests might well decide the course of the series. Kohli has so far played in 20 Tests against Australia scoring 1682 runs at an average of 48.05. He has scored seven tons against the Aussies.
Speaking exclusively on Star Sports, former India cricketer Irfan Pathan spoke on how Kohli will be approaching the Border-Gavaskar Test series and what areas he will be looking to improve on.
“So, the one thing he will be keeping in his mind is how he’s going to be countering the spin of Lyon as well as Agar. Because he has been struggling against spin specially and I think one thing he can do personally as well is to try and be a little more aggressive, because I think the strike rate against spin has come down as well,” Pathan said.
“I know we are talking about Test cricket here, but sometimes he must be slightly more aggressive against spin, it might make you better in that encounter when you’re actually facing guys like Nathan Lyon who is outstanding with his spin, extra bounce and he gets that ball moving away from the right-hander as well. So, I think that’s one thing he should keep in mind.”
India’s Test squad for the first two Tests against Australia: Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul (vice-captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), R. Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Suryakumar Yadav.
