Du Plessis on how to contain Kohli: “Saying too much to him gets him going”

Du Plessis on how to contain Kohli: The South African captain has warned the Australian cricket team regarding the Indian captain.

With the first match of India’s tour of Australia all set to begin next week, South Africa captain Faf du Plessis has warned the Australian cricket team with respect to the India captain Virat Kohli.

With the South African team currently in Australia for a short tour, du Plessis was asked about Kohli as India had toured South Africa earlier this year. Speaking to cricket.com.au, du Plessis was of the opinion that playing the ‘silent game’ with Kohli is possibly the best way to contain him on the cricket ground.

While it is a highly anti-Australian method, it might come in handy for them, says du Plessis, who believed that it somehow worked for them in South Africa earlier this year.

“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,” the 34-year-old was quoted.

Kohli had emerged as the highest run-scorer in the low-scoring series. In three Tests, he had scored 286 runs at an average of 47.66 and a strike rate of 60.21, including one century and one half-century.

“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,” du Plessis added.

Having defeated Australia 2-1 in the three-match ODI series, South Africa will face them in a one-off T20I tomorrow.

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