ENG vs IND 2018: James Anderson will have to find a different way to counter Virat Kohli, says Dale Steyn

Anderson troubled Virat the most during India's last tour of England in 2014.

Anderson troubled Virat the most during India's last Test series in England (Getty)

South African fast bowler and one of the greatest in the modern times, Dale Steyn has said that the Indian captain Virat Kohli is a better batsmen from the last time he toured England in 2014 and so, to counter him James Anderson, who troubled Virat the most during the disastrous series, will have to find different tactics to go one past India's best batsman. 

During the summer of 2014, Virat could only manage 134 runs across 10 innings at an average of 13.4 in a series that India lost 3-1. Since then, Virat has grown immensely as a player. His record after that series is better than it was preceding it and he has now arrived in England to resurrect a few things. 

Virat has taken his game to another level since. (AFP)

Steyn was quoted telling Firstpost about it as, “He has his weaknesses as well as his strengths. You try and feed on those weaknesses for as long as possible and hope he makes a mistake. You need to look at, say, Kohli's last ten dismissals and try and find if there is a pattern there. Maybe he was caught at mid-wicket last eight out of ten times. And when he walks in, I put a mid-wicket in there and I would say, "Ya, you know, I see you've been caught here eight times' and you play into his mindset. So those are the little tricks of the trade that a lot of teams would do."

“I am not a batting coach, but I can guarantee you that Anderson will continue to try and feed off those performances that he's had and he will continue those gameplans and will remind Kohli how he's gotten him out when he comes in and hopefully have a similar kind of field. But again, Kohli may have figured a way to combat that and Anderson will have to find a new way of getting him out and that's the great thing about Test cricket,” 

He further added, “We've got five Test matches and you might see a new trend develop. He (Anderson) might get him caught in a completely different way, a new gameplan. That's the exciting thing. I don't know what his gameplans would be and I don't know what Kohli's mindset is, going into this but if I know him the way I know him, he will be very determined to score runs and If I know Anderson the way I know him, he will be very determined to take wickets. So it's going to be a great contest.”

Cricket lovers around the world will get a sighter of another chapter in Virat vs Anderson tussle when the 5 -match Test  series starts on August 1. 

 
 

By Kashish Chadha - 27 Jul, 2018

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