India captain Virat Kohli has urged Australia to respect conditions in England during the Ashes later in the year, stating patience will be the key for batsmen.
Kohli had a disastrous tour of England in 2014 where he scored only 134 runs in five Tests but reinvented his game and came back last year to pile on nearly 600 runs when no other batsman on either side came even close to scoring 400.
After India clinched the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2-1, which could have been 3-1 but for rain in Sydney, Kohli urged Australian batsmen to take their time against the Dukes balls.
“If you go out there with an ego, you might as well not go at all,” Kohli said. “Because that Dukes ball, it buries egos pretty quickly.
“You have to curb yourself down and do the hard yards. Grind it out the whole day … you have to be patient as a batsman. There’s lot of time in Test cricket. But sometimes we are so nervous as batsmen, we don’t quite realise it.
“You just want to get away quickly but in England you’re not allowed to do that. So, you have to buy your time. And you have to earn the right to score runs eventually.
“But you have to get into a position where you should not even look at the scoreboard to see the number of balls. It’s inconsequential; patience is the only thing works there and putting runs on the board again is the most important thing to win Test matches.”
