Darren Lehmann : Need luck to stop Virat Kohli

02/07/2017

Australian head coach Darren Lehmann has claimed that his team has still not figured a foolproof plan to stop Virat Kohli from getting into his stride in the upcoming series against India. The 47-year-old also added that he was more concerned about his team's batting prowess than bowling abilities.

Virat Kohli has been in inspired form of late scoring 655 runs, at an average of 109.16, in the five Test matches against England. The Indian captain's record against Australia isn't too shabby as well. Kohli has scored six centuries in 12 matches against the Aussies at an average of 60.76 which is above his career average of 50.10.

"Bowl well and have a bit of luck along the way," Lehmann said, reported Reuters.

"For us we're going to have to come up with an ideal plan that works for us, depending on (the) wickets and what's going on.

"At the end of the day you're going to have to bowl enough good balls and that's going to be the challenge for our spinners and for our quicks, challenging his defence and making sure he's playing in the areas we want him to play."

However, Lehmann said that Kohli wasn't the biggest problem for the Australians ahead of the series. While he appeared to be confident that his bowlers could claim 20 wickets in the match, Lehmann was unsure whether the batsmen could back up the bowlers' efforts.

"We've got spinners who can take 20 wickets and quicks who can reverse the ball," he added.

"So we're not fearing getting the 20 wickets, we've just got to put enough scoreboard pressure on them."

But Lehmann added that he was still optimistic stating that the Aussies were most dangerous when they had their "backs against the wall". Referring to the 2004 series when Damien Martyn and Michael Clarke had emerged as heroes to secure Australia's first-ever away win in the Border-Gavaskar trophy, he said that Australia needed a herculean effort of that magnitude to get something out of the tour.

"The great thing with the Australian cricket team for years has been, backs to the wall brings the best out of players," Lehmann said.

"Someone like Matthew Hayden will stand up or Damien Martyn will come out of nowhere and actually play well on a tour.

"We hope we'll have a Martyn or a Hayden-type series from someone. And if we do that we'll make enough runs, obviously.

"It's a great challenge for the group, being a young group and they'll be giving it their all."