After the England series gets over, India is going to resume their rivalry against Australia as the Men in Blue will be travelling to the Aussie backyard for a long series starting in November.
Cricket news: The Indian team will travel to Australia for a long series in November
The series will contain three T20Is, three ODIs and four Test matches. Although there is still a few months left for the series to begin, yet the mind games have already begun and the first salvo has been fired by the Australian pace bowler Pat Cummins.
He spoke at a Channel 7 function at Sydney on Tuesday and stated that the Aussies will knock over the Indian team and will not let the Indian captain to score a hundred in the tour.
“My brave, bold prediction; I’d say I think Virat Kohli is not going to get a hundred and we’re going to knock them off over here,” Cummins said.
Kohli is currently the top-ranked Test batsman as the former Australian skipper Steve Smith has been banned for 12 months from playing international games by Cricket Australia.
Kohli has an average of 53.4 in Test matches, but that average soars up to 62 when it comes to Test matches played in Australia.
Kohli has so far played eight Test matches in Australia and has managed to score a massive 992 runs which includes five centuries.
When India last toured Australia, Kohli had played four Test matches and had made a whopping 692 runs with an average of 86.50 which included four centuries as well.
However the Indian run-machine did not perform well in the bilateral series which was held in India in 2016-17, where he managed to score just 46 runs from in three matches with a poor average of 9.20.
Former Australian fast bowler Glenn McGrath was also present at the function and he urged the Aussies to put tremendous pressure on Kohli and claimed that the Aussies will whitewash the entire team India and will win the Test series by a 4-0 margin.
“I want to see Australians put pressure on Kohli and just see how he handles it,” said McGrath.
“It’s going to be a good, hard, tough series. Kohli has got a bit of an aggressive attitude, but showed last time he was out here he’s not going to take a backward step.
“If they can get on top of Kohli I think it can have a big effect on the game,” McGrath added.