Steve Waugh urges Steve Smith & Co to ruffle Virat Kohli with verbal duels

Former Aussie captain Steve Waugh who led them to a World Cup triumph in 1999 has asked the current Australian side to dishevel Indian captain Virat Kohli with some verbal duels once the much-awaited four-match Test series begins at Pune in few hours time. While former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly and Harbhajan Singh has predicted a 4-0 result in India’s favour, Waugh has rubbished their claim and said it will be a competitive series.

“I wouldn’t recommend firing him up to start with, maybe that’s something you keep up your sleeve if he starts to score runs,” Waugh was quoted as saying by Cricket Australia very recently. “Like anyone, he’s vulnerable. He’s under pressure, he added.

“He’s got that massive weight of expectation on his shoulders. They (the Indian public) expect him to get a hundred every time he goes out to bat now, and he pretty much does. But there are going to be times when he has a bit of luck go against him, play a bad shot, loses concentration, maybe thinks too much about what he should be doing in the future not what he’s doing right now.”

Indian captain Virat Kohli has been in a sensational run-scoring form off late across all formats and very recently became the only batsman in Test cricket history to smash 4 double centuries in 4 consecutive Test series.

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He reached the feat during his superb innings in the one-off test against Bangladesh. He has led his troops to perfection and his unbeaten streak in Test cricket is currently the most by any Indian captain, just behind Australia’s Ricky Ponting and Caribbean legend Clive Llyod.

While India is the overwhelming favourites to win the 4 match Test series, Australia is no pushovers and is expected to give India a sterner fight than the Kiwis and the Englishmen. While New Zealand lost 3-0, England was outclassed 4-0 in the 5 match series.