‘Take away both sides of the wicket’ – how Warne would tackle Kohli
Warne was known for the attacking verve he brought to leg-spin, which gave him most of his 708 Test wickets, the second-highest in the all-time charts after Muttiah Muralitharan’s 800. Interestingly, however, that is not the strategy he would adopt for Kohli.
In fact, Warne believed attacking Kohli was a folly. "The one thing you need to do with Virat, which is one thing teams don't do enough of, is take away both sides of the wicket," Warne told ESPNCricinfo.
"Virat Kohli is a guy who is as dominant as Sir Vivian Richards" – Ravi Shastri says the India captain is the 'closest' he's seen to the Windies legend.
— ICC (@ICC) February 6, 2019
READ ⬇️ https://t.co/JFENN2gcBc pic.twitter.com/sBFdbRATPK
“If you're going to bowl to Virat Kohli, you either bowl at leg stump and protect the on side, or you bowl wide of off stump and you protect the off side. You cannot bowl at the stumps, because he can hit you both ways.
“I think you've to take out one side of the field. Protect just one side of the field, that's how you bowl to very good players.”
Warne acknowledged that it would still require an element of luck, but he believed it was the best way to contain the India captain, who is currently No.1 on the MRF Tyres Test and ODI batting charts.
“I'd be bowling wide of off stump and letting him try to cover drive with a slip, short cover and some protection out there,” he said. "So then, it'll be very hard for him to get it over the leg side. That's what I'd be trying to do, and hopefully, get a little bit lucky and he mis-hits one.”
I just got asked if I thought @imVkohli is better than @BrianLara or @sachin_rt
— Shane Warne (@ShaneWarne) March 9, 2019
Let me think about that and come back to you I said. @ivivianrichards to me was the best batsman after Bradman, but in modern times mmmmm. Tough one ! Thoughts followers whilst I contemplate ?
One question Warne frequently gets asked these days is whether Kohli is better than Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara, two batsmen he had rated as the greatest during his playing days.
Warne said it’s a difficult question and was still contemplating the answer. “You know records are different in different eras and it's very hard to judge,” he said. “All you can judge is how a player is in their era, and Virat Kohli is so far ahead in one-day cricket than everybody else – in hundreds made, especially while chasing – that sets him apart from everybody else that is playing.
“But is he as destructive as someone like Viv Richards was? And then you look at Lara and Tendulkar and how good they were … so I'm still working that out.”