Team India’s much-awaited tour of Australia is still a few months away, but the verbal wars have already been initiated by the cricketers. Australian speedster Pat Cummins accepted that he is making a bold prediction that the Indian skipper Virat Kohli will not be able to score a century in Australia.
Indian team is scheduled to tour Australia for a period of two months during which they will play in a three T20Is, four Tests and three ODIs starting from November. Speaking at an event at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) on Tuesday, Cummins said, “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.”
Kohli as a phenomenal batting average of 53.40 in Test cricket which goes past 62 when it comes to the Australian conditions. The last time India toured Australia, Kohli struck four centuries across four Tests, scoring 692 runs at 86.50.
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However, in 2017, when Australia visited India, they managed to keep Virat’s bat quite as he managed to scored just 46 runs in three Tests (he missed out the fourth Test in Dharamsala due to a shoulder injury).
The legendary Australian fast bowler Glenn McGrath predicts that the battle between these two teams will be intense and that Australia must target the Indian skipper if they are looking to win the series. As quoted in Sydney Morning Herald, he said, “I want to see Australians put pressure on Kohli and just see how he handles it. 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.”
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McGrath also suggested that targetting the opposition captain was the key for Windies teams of yesteryear and Australia should do the same as in India’s case the no. 1 batsman and the skipper is the same so the job of the opposition becomes much easier.
The first Test between India and Australia will be played on 6 December at Adelaide, with Perth, Melbourne and Sydney hosting the subsequent matches.
