“Always seems like he is up for a fight” - Australian players share their thoughts on Virat Kohli ahead of WTC final
Members of the Australian cricket team shared their views on star India batter Virat Kohli ahead of the World Test Championship (WTC) final. The Aussies used adjectives like ‘all-format great’ and ‘superstar’ to describe the former India captain.
India and Australia will meet in the WTC final at the Kennington Oval in London from June 7 to 11. This will be the second final for India, having finished runners-up in the maiden WTC summit clash in 2021.
In a video posted on ICC’s official Instagram handle, Australian players were asked what they think of Kohli. All-rounder Cameron Green described him as the "man of India".
“He has been for quite a while and he’s been leading the team for the last decade basically and has been so successful,” Green said.
Veteran Australian opener David Warner described Kohli as someone who has an unbelievable cover drive, while batter Marnus Labuschagne chipped in and added:
“One of the greats, I mean all-format great. Hopefully [he is] not so great this week.”
While opener Usman Khawaja described Kohli as ‘competitive’, left-arm seamer Mitchell Starc also praised the right-handed batter and commented:
“[He is] very skillful, dominated for a long time. I guess the backbone of the middle-order.”
Australian Test captain Pat Cummins said:
“Good player. Always seems like he is up for a fight.”
Steve Smith, who is often compared to Kohli, hailed the Indian cricketer and added:
“Obviously, he’s been a superstar for a long period of time. [He] loves playing against Australia. Often scores runs against us, but hopefully we can keep him quiet this week.”
Kohli has played 24 Tests against Australia, scoring 1979 runs at an average of 48.26, with eight hundreds. His best of 186 came earlier this year in the drawn Test in Ahmedabad.
"Virat Kohli’s energy rubs off on the other players as well” - Ravi Shastri
Former India head coach Ravi Shastri recently said that the energy Kohli brings onto the field has a positive impact on the other players in the team as well. There have been mixed views over the former captain’s over-aggressive antics on the field.
However, while speaking on Star Sports, Shastri praised Kohli’s enthusiasm.
“Virat Kohli’s energy rubs off on the other players as well. When you go out to play in foreign conditions, it is very important to have that intensity. You cannot show intensity for one hour and then go to sleep. The opposition will eat you up. He [Kohli] was the leader when it came to that,” Shastri said
Kohli has scored 869 runs in 16 matches at an average of 32.18 in the ongoing WTC (2021-2023), with one hundred and three fifties.