AUS v IND | Need to confront ‘ruthless’ Virat Kohli in a balanced way: Aaron Finch

Australia’s white-ball format captain Aaron Finch advised his teammates featuring in the four-match Test series against India to confront Virat Kohli in a balanced manner as he believes that the Indian skipper can be quite ‘ruthless’ against his opponents if provoked too much.

The rivalry between India and Australia has been quite intense traditionally. It includes everything starting from sledging to friendly banter, along with some quality cricket being played. The last series down under between the two sides was no different as the Australian Test captain, Tim Paine, and Kohli were found engaged in some heated arguments.

“I think there will be times when things boil over and when you have got strong characters on either team that’s going to come to a head at some point,” Finch was quoted as saying by ‘Sydney Morning Herald’.

“(But) there is a fine balance there, isn’t there? You don’t want him (Kohli) to get up and about in the contest. When he does, he can be ruthless on an opposition.”

The first Test of the four-match series, which is also going to be a day-night contest, will be played at Adelaide from December 17 onwards. This match will be very important to India as Kohli wilk be heading home afterwards to attend the birth of his first child. A good performance here can set the tone for India to do well in the rest of the series whereas a poor outing could completely demoralize them.

Finch also said that Kohli looks a lot calmer in the way he goes about his business now. He also mentioned that he was surprised to see the kind of confidence Kohli has when he got to observe him from close quarters during the recently concluded IPL.

“I think the change is in the way he goes about it now. I think as a person he is probably a bit more relaxed out on the field and understands the tempo of the game.”

“What really surprised me was how, he obviously does a lot of planning and preparation himself, and into the opposition, but he never focused more on the opposition than his own team,” he said.

“At Bangalore, he was always confident in the XI players that were picked and knew that if you played well, you had every chance of winning.

“I was really surprised by how confident he was in everyone, he had a lot of time for everyone. He was great around the group, a lot more relaxed. I had never played with him, I had only played against him.”