Indian captain Virat Kohli has given a piece of blunt but crucial advice to Australia ahead of the Ashes 2019, saying Tim Paine and his team must leave their egos at home if they want to make any chances of succeeding on the English soil.

Kohli, who scored 593 runs in five Tests against England last year, claimed that Dukes ball buries egos pretty quickly, therefore, the Aussies have to curb themselves down and do the hard yards to succeed in England in the forthcoming Ashes 2019 to be played in August.

On Monday, Kohli said at the post-match conference in Sydney, “If you go out there with an ego, you might as well not go at all. Because that Dukes ball, it buries egos pretty quickly. You have to curb yourself down and do the hard yards.”

Meanwhile, Australia will be heading to England, where they have not won a Test series since 2001, with an experienced batting line-up likely to welcome back Steve Smith and David Warner, as their ball-tampering bans will end this March, and Kohli’s advice could be crucial for the Kangaroos.

The dashing right-hander continued, “Grind it out the whole day … you have to be patient as a batsman. There’s a lot of time in Test cricket. But sometimes we are so nervous as batsmen, we don’t quite realize it. You just want to get away quickly but in England, you’re not allowed to do that.”

Kohli signed off by saying, “So, you have to buy your time. And you have to earn the right to score runs eventually. But you have to get into a position where you should not even look at the scoreboard to see the number of balls. It’s inconsequential; patience is the only thing works there and putting runs on the board again is the most important thing to win Test matches.”

(With Cricket Australia Network Inputs)