Australian white-ball captain Aaron Finch has advised Australia to have a fine balance in their aggression towards the Indian captain Virat Kohli when the first day-night Test of the four-match series begins on December 17 in Adelaide.
Finch wants home team players to strike a "fine balance" when they confront Virat Kohli, as he believes, if provoked too much, the India skipper can be "ruthless" against his opponents. The last time the two teams faced off in 2018-19, the Test series saw some heated exchanges between the two captains - Kohli and Tim Paine.
"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. (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," Finch was quoted as saying by Sydney Morning Herald.
Finch, who played in the 2018-19 series against India and has shared the dressing room with Virat Kohli in the Royal Challengers Bangalore IPL franchise, mentioned that the Indian skipper looks much calmer the way he goes about his job now.
"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 11 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,” Finch added.
As someone who had many on-field duels with Kohli, Finch said it was good to learn about his relaxed side.
He said, "We have had some great series where he has been on another level as a player but he has been right up and about in terms of being very vocal out in the middle. It was great to see that (relaxed) side of him."
(PTI inputs)
