Former Australian middle-order batsman Michael Hussey has given a piece of advice to their country’s players while stating not to annoy Indian skipper Virat Kohli during the four-match Test series which is scheduled for February 23.
“There’s no need to get involved in that sort of verbal barrage because I think that fires him up even more. You don’t want to get carried away with too much talk and lose your concentration of what’s important, which is executing your skills,” Hussey told cricket.com.au.
The 41-year-old Western Australia-born Hussey has expressed that it would not be an ideal situation for the touring team to fire up prolific batsman Kohli, who has been recently appointed as the all format skipper after MS Dhoni relinquished from the captaincy.
“I wouldn’t try and fire him up. I think he thrives on that and he’s a real competitor. He loves being in the fight and loves the contest out in the middle,” Hussey said.
Know as the Mr Cricket, Hussey averaged best as the Australian batsman in Asia while playing five or more Tests. He termed Kohli as the ‘enemy No. 1’.
“If he [Virat] gets in, he’ll go big and score big runs. He’s very confident at the moment, he knows the conditions so well and generally if he plays well, India win,” Hussey remarked.
Earlier, Australian skipper Steven Smith in an interview reiterated that the side would like to see Kohli in some sort of anger which according to him would be an advantage for the visitors.
“There’s no need to get involved in that sort of verbal barrage because I think that fires him up even more.” Hussey concluded.
In 2014-15, Smith’s verbal spat saw Kohli putting on 169 runs in the Boxing Day game.
Enjoying the merry run, the 28-year-old has recently amassed 655 runs against England in the five-match series at home.
Hussey, who made his debut in 2005, played 185 One-day Internationals, 79 Tests and 38 Twenty20 Internationals for Australia. He has scored 6,235, 5,442 and 721 runs respectively in all three formats for Australia.
The left-handed batsman Hussey has played his last international match against Sri Lanka in January 2013.