New Zealand seamer Jacob Duffy has heaped praise on the Indian talismanic batter Virat Kohli ahead of the five-match ODI series, which is scheduled to commence on Wednesday, November 4 at Eden Park in Auckland.
Speaking during a media interaction, Duffy termed Kohli a religious figure and a megastar out in India, adding that he was so down-to-earth as to welcome all overseas players at the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) during the IPL. He added that he is looking forward to playing against him in the One-Day series.
“I got to see him [Kohli] yesterday. He was in the gym, obviously, so running into him there was cool, but he was awesome to me,” Duffy said during a media interaction.
“Obviously, for such a religious figure, I guess you could almost say, in India, he’s obviously a megastar over there. For him to be so down-to-earth and sort of welcome all us overseas guys at RCB was pretty cool, so I’m very appreciative of him for that. It’ll be awesome to play against him now that I’ve shared a changing room with him as well,” he added.
Further, Duffy admitted bowling a lot to the veteran Indian batter in the nets during his time with the RCB. He went on to add that having seen a lot of his bowling in the nets, Kohli will be well prepared against him in the ODI series.
“He’s got a great work ethic. Obviously, I bowled a lot to him in the nets because he was always the first batter and I was always the first bowler. We actually spent a lot of time facing each other in the nets, so that’s quite cool. But from that, he’s seen a lot of me now too, so he’ll be well prepared,” he observed.
“I guess we talked a lot about fine details. We discussed certain wickets back in India. Some wickets are quite different, so he spoke a lot about the lines and lengths required on those surfaces, how he adjusts, and how he thought I could adjust as well. Little insights like that were quite important coming from him,” he concluded.
