Mumbai : South Africa captain Faf du Plessis has urged Australia to give Virat Kohli who is currently the world’s top-ranked Test batsman, the ‘silent treatment’ as the two sides gear up to engage in a cricketing series from November 21.
The 34-year-old believes that their decision to avoided engaging Kohli during the three-match Test series against India earlier this year certainly played a key role in their 2-1 truimph.
“There are guys like that in international cricket (who enjoy the confrontation). We feel like that when we play against someone like Virat Kohli,” said du Plessis.
“He’s a similar character (to du Plessis), 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.”
“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,” he added.
Indian skipper Virat Kohli insisted that he had matured as a player and promised to not start arguments against the Australians, but only finish them during a media briefing before leaving for the Australia tour.
“If they (Australia) want to play a certain way, we will reciprocate,” said Kohli.
“That is how the game of cricket goes. But at the same time, in our own minds we have to keep it competitive.”
“We were always the ones giving it back, we were never the ones starting anything.”
“So long as it doesn’t start, we have no problem just focusing on our game and doing what we need to do,” he added.
India’s tour of Australia will commence on November 21 with the first T20 International between the two sides all set to take place at “The Gabba”.
