It would be a task for the Australians to stop Virat Kohli, says Michael Clarke

Former World Cup winning Australian captain and renowned commentator/analyst, Michael Clarke feels it would be a challenge to stop Indian captain Virat Kohli in the upcoming 5-match ODI and 3-match T20I series. Clarke believes that the Australian side has to play out of their skins to challenge the Indian team at home.

Australia is fresh off a hard-fought series in Bangladesh, under hot, humid and spinning conditions. They manage to lock the series after losing in the Dhaka test.  The last time Australians toured in India for limited over format competition was in 2013 where they lost the 7-match ODI series by a margin of 4-3 and also lost the one-off T20 match.

The series belonged to one man named Virat Kohli, who smashed the fastest ton by an Indian in ODI cricket and helped his team chase down a total of 350 or more twice.

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“It will be very challenging for the Australian team to stop Virat Kohli at the moment. He is in terrific form, especially in the one-day format… 30 international hundreds already. He has been a wonderful player. They have to play their best, they have to find ways to stop the Indian captain Virat Kohli and probably also their top three batsmen. I think that’s going to be the key for Australia,” commented Michael Clarke according to his interview with IndiaTV.

That said, Clarke stated that the current Australian squad is best suited for limited over cricket and would look to build momentum towards the upcoming Ashes. He also augmented about the Indian team being high on confidence post the tour whitewash in Lanka.

“I think one-day cricket has been Australia’s strength over a long period of time. This team will be looking to build some momentum for the Australian summer. We are playing England in Australia. It is going to be a tough contest, there’s no doubt about it. India is full in confidence coming back from a successful tour in all three formats against Sri Lanka,” concluded Pup.