Ricky Ponting : Australia will need to get Kohli out of his comfort zone
Ricky Ponting has called for the Australian team to play mind games with Virat Kohli during their four-Test visit starting later this month in order to bring the India skipper out of his comfort zone. The ex-Australia captain said Kohli resembled him owing to his aggressive approach on the field.
"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," Ponting told Zee News.
"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."
Ponting said Australia should not allow top-ranked India to build any sort of momentum.
"One thing I learnt about playing in India is the momentum that the home team can create, you have to try and stop that," said Ponting, who was a part of the last Australian team to win a Test series in India in 2004-05.
"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.
"Is he (Kohli) 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."
The first Test will start on Feb 23 in Pune.