Writing for Daily Mail, former England skipper Nasser Hussain has suggested few pointers for the visitors, to how to go get rid of the Indian captain Virat Kohli in the Cuttack One-Dayer after his Pune heroics.
Newly appointed skipper Kohli was among the run-scorers for India in the first ODI, smashing his 27th hundred. Riding on his and Kedar Jadhav tons, India gained a one-nil lead in the three-match series on Sunday.
What made visitors suffer was not Kedar’s quick fire-century, rather it was Virat Kohli’s attacking approach from outset which eventually laid the foundation of a successful victory for India. However, to avoid another Kohli attack, Hussain has explained what all England bowlers need to do to cut short Virat’s golden run in the upcoming matches.
Penning down his thoughts, Hussain said visitors made a blunder by offering him to play more on his strengths and should now limit his strokes, in order to avoid free flowing of runs. He believes bowling him around the wicket and keeping one side of the field out of equation might just frustrate the Indian captain and thus, make him play loose shots anytime in the game, which can lead to his downfall.
“Perhaps Eoin Morgan has to take one side of the field out of the equation, go around the wicket and hide the ball outside off stump while telling his bowlers that he does not mind if they go for the odd wide or two. Then they could try to keep him off strike a bit more than they did in Pune on Sunday by allowing the lad at the other end a single off the fifth or sixth ball, or bring the field up to Kohli towards the end of the over to try to make him play a big shot that could lead to his downfall.”
Another option he came up with was of bringing the all-rounder Liam Plunkett into the side, and asking him to bowl short deliveries to the country’s prolific run-scorer. Hussain, thus, feels asking Kohli to play short ball with three fielders on the boundary line will help their cause, given the captain isn’t comfortable playing lofted shots every now and then.
“An option England may well employ, if conditions dictate, is to bring Liam Plunkett into the side, put three men out and go for the short stuff.”
His last choice was a however a bit daunting one, something Australian’s have done in past and nearly found success, and that is to get on his nerves and hurt his ego. Explaining this, Hussain said this is something which has been a tried and tested formula against Virat Kohli and that he is vulnerable to provocations, be at verbally or tactically.
“I would also like them to try to get stuck into him a bit verbally because he can have a short fuse. Try to work on his ego, like teams would attempt to do with Kevin Pietersen.”
The fate of the ODI series awaits on Thursday, when India and England face off in Cuttack for the second One-Dayer.