A lot of players can be bowed down if they are sledged on a cricket field. The Australians have used the tactics to get under the skin of the opposition since eternity. But South African skipper Faf du Plessis has warned that such moves don’t work with Virat Kohli. The Indian captain only gets better if he is targetted.
On the last tour to Australia, Kohli had slammed 4 centuries in 4 Tests. The opposition players like Mitchell Johnson tried to bring him down with aggression but Kohli gave it back with words as well as bat. Du Plessis mentioned that South Africa had planned not to say anything to him on India’s previous tour. Even then, the Indian right-hander scored big runs. Had they sledged, he would have made them pay even more.
Better not say much to Virat: Faf du Plessis
“There are guys like that in international cricket (who enjoy the confrontation). We feel like that when we play against someone like Virat Kohli. He’s a similar character, he wants to get into the fight. There’s one or two guys in each team around the world that we as a team discuss before playing against them. We’re like, ‘better not say too much to him because you’ll get him going,” cricket.co.au quoted du Plessis as saying.
“He’s an amazing player. We gave him the silent treatment and he still scored runs in South Africa, but we felt like it was not huge runs – he scored the one hundred there in Centurion when the wicket was slow. So every team will have what they think works – for us, that was silent treatment,” Faf added.
India and Australia will engage in series across all formats. Aggression is in the Aussie blood. Despite Faf’s warning, chances are that the Kangaroos would still attempt to sledge Virat Kohli. On the other hand, Virat won’t mind and would hope for a repeat of the last tour’s performance.
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