It Was Only Virat Kohli Who Stood Out In South Africa And England, Says Josh Hazlewood As He Points Out India’s Over Reliance On Kohli
Dec 3, 2018 at 2:31 PM
Australia vice-captain Josh Hazlewood is confident the hosts would be able to keep India’s strong batting lineup especially skipper Virat Kohli in check in the upcoming Test series.
The last time Kohli had visited Australia, he had given the hosts a tough time. The India skipper had amassed 692 runs with the help of four hundreds. But unfortunately, India had failed to win the series. Well, Kohli has now become even more dangerous with the bat and is set to pose more problems for the hosts.
His exploits in South Africa and England earlier this year are enough to show that he is by far the best batsman in the world right now. Kohli will also receive support from the likes of Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane and others.
Not surprisingly, Australia will have their task cut out against the Indian batting lineup. However, Josh Hazlewood is confident his teammates can do the task. He also pointed out that the visitors are over-reliant on their skipper.
“I see the Indian line up as the best in the world, if not right up there, led by Virat and I think they feed a lot off him and how he goes about things,” Josh Hazlewood said.
“They’ve played a lot at home since we played them last in Australia. They toured England and South Africa, and it was only Virat who stood out. A lot of the other haven’t scored too many of the runs,” he added.
Hazlewood revealed Australian team has been making plans for Kohli and a few “options” will be in place.
“I think we’ll obviously have a chat about him before the game starts. We’ll come up with a couple of options. It’s about what conditions suit, with a player of that caliber you need a few options,” Hazlewood told reporters.
Hazlewood, however, ruled out the possibility of getting under the skin of Kohli to unsettle him.
“Virat obviously thrives on that sort of stuff. It gets him going and he probably plays his best cricket when he’s doing that. It’s up to the individual – if it’s a bowler or a fielder. I am usually pretty quiet when I am bowling,” said the right-arm pacer.
India have been touted as favourites against Australia in the absence of the banned batting duo of Steve Smith and David Warner but Hazlewood said it would be an even contest.
“I think it’s pretty even. They’re obviously number one Test team in the world but we play some good cricket at home. So I think it’s very even heading this,” he said.
“With our bowling attack we’re very confident and based on last year, we had quite a good template there and it worked pretty well (in the Ashes). So we’ll be looking to replicate that and test it against one of the best batting orders in the world,” he added.
The first Test will get underway on December 6 in Adelaide before both the teams move to Perth, Melbourne and Sydney for the last three games.