Target Kohli’s body, his front pads to put him on the back-foot: Healy’s advice to Aussie quicks

PTI, Nov 19, 2024, 3:11 PM IST

Legendary Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy wants his country’s pace attack to employ every strategy, from targeting Virat Kohli’s front foot to “body bashing” him with short-pitched deliveries, to get the Indian stalwart out in the five-Test Border-Gavaskar Trophy, beginning in Perth on Friday.

The star Indian batter has been enduring a lean patch across all formats in recent months, with just two centuries and 11 fifties in his last 60 Test innings.

However, despite these struggles, Kohli boasts an impressive average of 54.0 in Australia.

Healy has urged the formidable Australian pace trio of Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc to try and put Kohli on the back-foot.

“The first matchup I’m looking at is how our quicks can bowl to Virat Kohli, and I think they should target his front pad quite often,” Healy told SEN Radio.

“He sits that front foot there and he can play from anywhere — he can play square on the off-side, he can whip onto the leg-side or he can rock back … but they’ve got to look for any sort of insecurity in his form and maybe target that front pad.” Healy, who played 119 Tests scoring nearly 4,500 runs, feels the Aussie quicks should not target Kohli’s front foot far too often as the Indian stalwart might understand the trick.

“Don’t do it every ball because he’ll get used to it… it’s the impact ball that has to be on the front pad after he is set up with seam.” If the tactic doesn’t work, Healy wants the bowlers to target Kohli’s body.

“If that’s (front-foot tactic) not working, body bash. Bowl at the back armpit, that’s the right arm as a right-handed batsman… and it’s got to be hot,” Healy said.

“Have him jumping at times if he wants to ride those deliveries — ducking, weaving or bending backwards. Get that short leg position right next to him on the leg side and if you need a bumper, it’s got to go at the badge. He might try to bust out of a hard spell with a hook shot or pull shot and that will be hard to control if it’s badge height,” opined Healy.

“So that’s the second tactic, body bashing.”