PONTING: AUSTRALIA NEED TO CURB KOHLI TO SUCCEED IN INDIA

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The 42 year old former Australian captain thinks that team Australia need to target the Indian skipper and they should try to stop him from scoring  runs.

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The former Australian captain thinks that the 28 year old Indian skipper Virat Kohli is the best batsman in the ODIs and thinks it will be Ill- timed to level him great in the test matches.

Ponting added: “Is he 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,”

“Is it too premature to call him the best ever? You can probably say that right now as far as his one-day cricket is concerned. His one-day record is outstanding and probably better than anybody that’s ever played the game given how many hundreds (27) he’s made but let’s give him a few years yet in the Test series side of things.

“It’s too early yet to be talking about him being one of the greats. I think the great players we always talk about — the Tendulkars, the Laras, the Kallises — those guys played 120, 130-200 Test matches. Virat’s not even halfway along that path,”

After that the 42 year old Australian skipper did against his side against oncoming Kohli menace on their four match test series which will start from late February.

Ponting thinks Team Australia should try to get Kohli out as early as possible.

He added: “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,”

“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.

“One thing I learnt about playing in India is the momentum that the home team can create, you have to try and stop that.

“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,”